Antimatter
by Rekad
Summary: The Distortion World: the place where I'm from. But I would never call it home. As a type changing eevee, I was sent by Giratina to the real world to unlock gate between two worlds; but I betrayed her and found my own path in life. But this life wasn't as happy as I thought it will be. Pokemon POV. Rated T for some coarse language and violence.
1. Chapter 1 'Fear'

(Disclaimer: Pokemon and its trademarked characters do not belong to me.)

Me.

The feeling, the emptiness and resignation.

The darkness around, so similar to the one in my heart, now disturbed by the weak light coming from the entrance of my cave.

It just stopped raining.

I made my way through the grey and smooth tunnel. The sunlight outside wasn't intensive, devitalized by a dense crown of dark leaves growing on tall and old trees. It was peaceful, trees were softly swinging and humming. The narrow rapid stream on my left was with noise spreading into the lake shimmering with the reflected gold sunlight.

There was a movement out of the corner of my eye. I shot a glance but I didn't see anyone there. It was only one of many puddles and the only thing that was moving in there was my own reflection. From the blue sheet of water was a tired-looking umbreon looking at me, his black fur very messy and dishevelled, his eyelids showing that sleep was what he should be doing right now. I got closer to the puddle but as I was walking my reflection started to change. My fur lost its black colour and become yellow, my short tail change from bushy to a long thin leaf, and when I stood close to the puddle I saw I had suddenly changed into grass form. I could clearly see my eyes, white-blue on the edge turning slowly into bright-grey in the middle and light-green in the centre, with small tiny brown dots on the edge of the left one, which could be only spotted upon looking closer.

My eyes were the only one thing that was remaining the same in every of my forms. I quickly looked away from my reflection and shook my head. They were for sure hypnotising and they proved that many times.

I had the morning routine, I started my walk along of the mountainside. The forest around me was dark: this part of the wood was always covered in the shadow of the mighty 'U'-shaped mountain. The environment didn't change here for years. Trees, bushes, some thick grass and fallen branches. It took me all morning before I arrived the edge of the wood which I claimed as mine, then I turned to the right. Going deeper into the forest and wander off the mountainside I saw much older trees with curved root pending from the ground overlaid by fallen leaves which wind wasn't able to tear from tight embrace of roots. Some of the older trees that didn't survive the last extreme weather were lying randomly blocking small paths which I walked for many years. Not natural to this place were burnt holes in the ground, that was an effect of my night activity. When storm arrived I didn't manage to hide in time to avoid this completely, the electricity of bolts make me change to electric type, very unstable form of mine. I have only indirect control of my changing-type ability, if I expose myself to the sun I can change my appearance into an espeon or by staying in the water into a vaporeon but if I lose contact with each element I also lose each type and another will replace it. I barely remember what happened this night but that was very exhausting.

Suddenly I found a track of recent prints, which were leading to the nearby lake. I followed the path of prints and after a while of walking found its owner in the small beach of the lake. Cream and brown fur, short paws, a long tail and a stupid facial expression, without this small paws he would look like some kind of furred snake. He or she was looking just like my last dinner but with one difference, this one was much bigger than the last one, he was almost twice my height.

I would be very happy to meet him at night, but now it was a day. In the sky was still early morning sun. I didn't want to risk a fight, especially while I had a less risky option how to deal with this meat-bag. I left my hiding spot, walked to this creature and sat down behind him, waiting for his attention, I was waiting and waiting and waiting but he was still starting at dark water.

"Hkhnhee," I said harshly. That wasn't supposed to sound like that, it was very long since I had to speak but I never thought I will forget how to do so. I thought I need to have some practice.

On the unexpected sound, the brown hairy creature immediately jumped, scared.

 _Why didn't I killed him instantly? Ahh yes, a dragging part may be a challenge._

He looked at me, breathing sharp and heavy.

"You scared me half to death, do..." he didn't finish before I looked directly into his eyes, immediately overwhelmed him by the blue glow of mine pupils. He froze and his sight started to be blurry. My eyes were working even on me, reflected by the mirror and I didn't have much control over them when they break mind and forcing its user to be temporary upon control.

I met only one pokemon who was fully immune to this effect. She liked staring at my eyes until I told her who I am.

I started walking to the cave, didn't lose my glance from my prey's eyes and he followed me. He probably was now lost somewhere in his mind in some kind of a dream. I smiled to myself,

 _This couldn't be easier._

I started quietly singing under my breath or at last, I tried. I still need to remind myself how to use my tongue, so it was understandable only for me.

While I was singing I lured him to my cave. After the entrance of the grotto was a fork, the tunnel on the right was leading to the medium sized room where I usually sleep. I chose a tunnel on the left which led me to another room which was much bigger, the ceiling was very high, with many pendant stalactites. There was no floor, almost the whole cave was a big underground lake, with a single flat rock in the centre.

I forced my powers to change me much faster from the grass to the dark type. Forcing for the fast change wasn't something that I should do as I could easily overload myself and lose my powers temporarily, but currency situation required that.

When I had my bigger fangs of umbreon, I immediately jumped on my dinner's throat but I missed. Surprisingly, he was able to quickly stand on his back legs, so I hit my head in his long neck. He lost his balance and before I could attack again, he flipped over to the underground pond. There was only a single sharp scream before he was melted by the pond of toxic liquid.

From what I discovered I know that I emit some kind of bad energy and if I would stay close to something too long it starts to change to the worst version of this self, so this was more like a pond of acid than water but it was safe for me. I know most of my ...different abilities very well. I normally liked this pond as it was making my calm and relaxed but now it upsets me because it just ate my meal.

 _Fuck._

While I was sitting on the flat rock in the centre of my cursed underground lake, blaming myself that I couldn't even catch something to eat, I could hear many steps and voices entering my underground home. They were running inside and a moment after I jumped off the rock, first one entered the high grotto. He was a tall, jet black canine creature with white curved horns on his head and some bone-like things on his back, his muzzle was bright-red almost orange. After him were three similar black pre-evolution dogs without horns and problems to fit themselves in the tunnel. I needed oxygen so I forced myself for change my form again and …I overloaded my powers.

That wasn't any visible effect but I could feel that I would lose my current form in less than a minute.

Luckily, there was a single, underwater tunnel, my emergency exit. I swam as fast as I could, it was impossible to make it to the exit before I lose my form but I needed to try. The tunnel was like serpentine going right, left, down, right and up. I never before manage to swim that fast and I was almost at the end of the tunnel, it was right here where I lost my fish like tail and with him my ability to breath underwater.

I immediately become much, much slower. Up, up, up, I was doing everything that I could with my shorts paws of eevee to get out of the water, my wet fur became heavy dragging me down, my lungs felt like they wanted to explode. I penetrated a sheet of the water and hit that wall of the air, gasping. I made it, I was standing on the ground, on the opposite side of the mountain. All wet, I chose a direction to the left and started running through the forest. I needed to find my safe place which I prepared for the situation like this. A terrain here was tawny and made of rocks. Many stones in any size were lying randomly and plants were growing between them fulfilling every possible empty space, I could recognise some of them like pasque flowers, prickly pears and yuccas. The prickly pear flower pads were in a gray-green colour that means they were …

"Ohh!"

* * *

What happened? Did I hit something? I felt like in a dream. I shouldn't be looking at flowers while I'm running. I only hoped no one would find me when I was like this, but now I had a while to think.

How did these hunters found my home? Did they track me? I remember I was focused on my prey to keep him following me. So tracking was possible.

What was my plan now, I couldn't go back and fight without my alternative forms and I had only a small stock of food in my second save place It could be even a month before I get my ability back. Maybe should I go to the human city? I was doing this before in similar situations when I overloaded my ability, living in a sewage system and eating what I would find, most important, hunters won't follow me to the city.

I supposed to avoid every eeveelution in my neutral form, they usually stay in packs and it would be hard to explain, especially when I'm in my normal-type appearance, that I don't want to live with a randomly met pack and it can be dangerous for them. This is one of two creatures which I don't want to hunt no matter how hungry I would be, they are just too similar to me, only without that cursing, everything around thing and an ability to changing form, and they aren't from the distortion universe.

Maybe should I enjoy some sleep to pass my 'immobile' time? Yeah, I think it's a good idea.

* * *

I woke up with a terrible headache. A something or rather someone was carrying me, I could feel the grasp of teeth on the back of my neck and I definitely didn't feel the ground under my paws.

 _Did these hunters find me?_

Even if so, they shouldn't be able to recognise me, I doubted that they really saw me as eevee, generally, I highly doubted that anyone saw me as eevee. This grasp was too gentle for trappers. I could smell a dim scent of smoke and felt a warm breath from probably a muzzle of this thing. It wasn't just warm, it was eerily hot. As I opened my eyes, I saw that I was in the forest which I didn't recognise, trees were short with small simple leaves in natural green colour, a forest cover was very poor in comparison to this which I used to see. It was only growth with some rare mosses and bushes with small red fruits on it. Close below me was a dirty, dry and tight road. My transport was walking slowly but rhythmic. I looked up to see who was keeping me below the ground. This critter was very familiar for me, it was one of my rarest and most useless appearances. Normally this being could breathe fire but out of all the elements, I was allowed only to use the electricity. She was in her early-mid age. When she saw that I m starting at her, she placed me on the dirt road.

"Hello, I was worried you will never wake up. My name is Rea, what's yours?" asked me a female flareon.

 _What was my third point in my plan? To avoid every eeveelution and first thing what I've done was that I ran into the closest possible one. My name, which one should I use? Should I think about a new name or use one of my old names._

"Are you there? What's your name?" she broke my train of thoughts.

"Sinar," I said. _Nooo! Why did I use this name out of all the names which I had?_ "How long was I unconscious?" I asked. To my surprise, she understood me perfectly. Maybe in this form, I could speak correctly or my short session of reminding myself how to speak gave some effect.

"Well, I found you two days ago, you were running and you weren't looking where you were going so you hit a rock in front of me with your head," she explained. "I guessed that you were running from something, so I picked you and escaped this rocky place, I thought you are lost so I kept you with me, and now we are here."

Goodbye, my favourite cave, and welcome 'here'. Two days is long enough to be far away from the last familiar place which I could know. To my advantage was the fact that she was carrying my all this time so I hadn't left my scent which could be used to track me. No matter how much I wanted to avoid her at first, she proves that she may be useful. Also to have her around could be a good idea, not many will try to mess with the fire type, and I was almost defenceless in my currently neutral body.

My stomach reminds me that I was starving by a loud growl.

"Oh, Are you hungry? Wait here, I will find something to for you," said Rea, leaving me on the road.

A source of the transport, my own bodyguard and a chef, I was sure that I would accept her company for awhile.

* * *

Why did I think she would bring me some tasty meat? Before me were lying the same fruits which we passed five minutes ago. She was staring at me and waiting.

"Something is wrong?" she asked me in a kind tone, seeing that I hadn't even started to eat.

"I can't e... I mean I don't like them," what if she doesn't eat meat? I couldn't just blow my cover telling her about my food preferences.

"Everyone likes them, you just need to try," she tried to encourage me.

"I'm not 'everyone' and I won't try them," I knew what will happen after I will try them.

"Ooh just open your mouth," now she was treating me like a cub, maybe I was looking like one but this was getting me angry.

"Didn't you hear me?! I wo..." before I could end my sentence, she put one of these currant-like fruits in my mouth and covered my nose and mouth with a paw. I gulped. "You idiot," I said angrily, as she removed her paw.

What a crazy female! She is treating me like a cub and then she is forcing me to eat something that I don't want to eat. This was too late now, I could feel my jaw disagree to food which 'everyone' liked and I only manage to get off the road before I throw up my stomach contents. Uh, and I thought it was empty.

Third hour. It was the third hour while I was lying on my side and my stomach was doing a lot of cramps trying to prove me that he has still something inside.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't know you can't eat berries, I will bring you a something different next time, maybe some meat," she apologised to me again.

So she can eat meat, and that was a berry? I thought it was the currant.

I was feeling much better now, not because she said she was sorry but because it was three hours and only the one small fruit.

"Just don't force...ecch...me to eat something again," I said, still in cramps.

When some time passed, she spoke again.

"So what were you doing so close to this mountain?" she asked me, " I heard some scary stories about some monster and that he is catching everyone who will enter his territory."

 _Catching?_

"You heard a legend about this 'monster'?" I was curious to finally hear this story about me and tried to avoid her first question. "The locals told you?"

"Yes they told me but I wasn't paying much attention because there weren't making completely any sense, they don't even know how this thing looks like, they gave this thing the name Bieda." So, I'm a thing with a weird name.

"ouhh,"- my career will remain mystery for me

"But, why you were so close to this mountain?" she asked again with a frown, I didn't want to answer, I needed to lie "There are no packs of our kind near this forest, do you live somewhere nearby?"

 _Your kind, not ours._

"Ehh, I was lost, my hideout is on the south side of the mountain far in the wood, and I live alone. " That wasn't completely a lie.

"I'm sorry I didn't know, I think I will be able to help you after I end some of my business." I didn't care what her 'business' was so I didn't ask.

"Don't worry about me, I feel fine." Don't even think that someone cares. "But I don't recognise that area so can you tell me which way is the mountain?"

"Well you can stay with me for now but I will need to leave you soon to complete my business"

"Thanks…," So I stuck with her for now.

" Now we should start moving, small one. " Yeah, small...

Before we get moving Rea caught me dedenne to eat, I didn't know most names of other than eeveelution species and I didn't really care about them until it was something that should be avoided from a far distance. This one was an electric type, the type which I was trying to avoid because, usually I'm not in the mood to change my form to jolteon and running around completely crazy until I faint from exhaustion just because of some lucky thunder, but I could finally eat something.

We were moving to the west so the sun was now was behind us. We weren't talking and I was fine with that. Actually, I changed my decision and I planned to stick with her for a while since I really didn't have anything better things to do and free food and walking across the forest with her protection were a much better idea than my plan to living in the sewage. Maybe I will even be able to find a new better place to residence than my actual cave. After the walk and my stomach turned, I was tired. I planned to sleep on this night, that wasn't natural for me. Usually, I hunt in the night.

Close before sunset, we found a hole big enough to house both of us. It was just the standard dark hole between dry roots. We lied down on opposite walls of the pit.

"So what you were doing so close to my-mountain?" This was my time to ask a question.

"I didn't plan to go close to the mountain, I'm just heading to the west," she avoided my query. "Did you said that hill was yours?"

"No, ehh, I am just tired," so if she didn't respond my question then it may be better for me to just go to sleep. I could feel her look on my back when I was falling to the world of dreams. I need pay more attention before I say something again, it's the second time when I almost told something that I didn't want to.

* * *

I woke up before the sunset. Even if I didn't sleep long feeling of tiredness disappeared without a sight. As I stood up, I didn't saw female flareon anywhere around. I guessed that Rea probably went to catch something for a breakfast or maybe for different more private needs.

I felt that something with that flareon wasn't right, I didn't know what exactly, but my instinct was almost screaming me to keep my eyes wide open. As I was alone I tried to use my powers to absorb some energy from grass, I was doing this softly just to check them. As I expected nothing happened, I was still blocked. I returned to the hole to wait for my guardian but as one hour had passed and she didn't come back I became bored. She didn't tell me where we were so without her I was completely lost.

I decided to find her, I started to look through the area for any track or scent of her and quickly found one. I followed this patch of the odour with my nose close to the ground. After a half hour of walking, I found myself in a small clearing. Here I could smell two new scents. It seems that she met someone here. Now more visible prints of Rea and other two four legged creatures were heading to the nearby low hill. As I got on this hill I had a clear view in every direction, I looked around with hope to see my mountain but it wasn't anywhere in sight.

It was only the forest everywhere, but just as I turned to west in my sight came a human city. Very big and very urbanised city. The outskirts were mainly factories, from where was flying a lot of black smoke. On the opposite side of the city were one-family houses with red roofs, walls in the white colour and gardens where were growing small trees and short bushes. Some cars were parked on next to gardens, single road. In the city centre, I could see several skyscrapers with sides made of glass.

"So back to the plan A," I said to myself. I was curious where Rea disappeared, but didn't really care. I made my way in the direction of the city.

I would arrive in the city probably at the tomorrow night. Now without Rea, I needed to pay some more attention to my surrounding, I didn't want to meet any predators so I was moving much slower than before, trying to listen intently to any potential dangers. I was walking a whole day and spend the night in a thick bush but without sleep. At morning I continued my trip still careful avoiding traces of life.

Like I expected, I arrived in the city at the midnight. The scent of exhaust fumes, trash, and other factories remind me how much I like the clean and fresh air of wilderness. How it's even possible to live in this centre of noise and pollution whole life. Just thinking about it was making me a headache and weirdly irritated, maybe unnatural environment in which humans separated themselves from the wilderness made this species so aggressive and impatient.

I saw that before of outskirts was a junkyard, maybe it would be better to stay in this junkyard than in the sewage system. It's close to the forest and I already saw some violet rat-like creatures. It took me awhile to wandering through the trash of junkyards to find a hideout for me but I finally decided to stay in an old fridge which one someone placed in something that supposed to be a truck hundred years ago.

The junkyard, that field was actually more like a garbage dump, on the ground were lying crumbled bricks, glass and porcelain. Tonnes of rubbish were covering stark and rusted bodies of old cars and trucks, making small hills of junks. In the centre of the yard was a single ruined cabin with windows masked by skis. This place was looking like the field of old dreams. They were here slowly becoming history which will be forgotten.

It was reminding me of old times when I was looking for a place for me after I decided to be free, wandering across this world. I made some friends and several lovers, but none of them stayed with me for long, pushed away by my nature. All of them were only short adventures.

How old was I? No one knows, even me, if I would want to calculate, I didn't know how much time I spent in distortion world before coming here. I didn't remember anything earlier than being trained by Giratina how to hide, kill and survive on the mission which she later gave me. When I finally went out of reflected universe I spend four years to prepare portal which could help Giratina come on this globe, but that never happened. After that I had multiple adventures which proved to me that if I want to live here I will be alone, my nature was too much different from others habits.

During one of my companionless treks, I met this one pokemon with whom I thought I will live forever as she was completely immune to effects of my extraction. We became close to each other and we were together more than three years but we broke up. I started telling her about my past and she ran away from me. I didn't even have a chance to tell her about me being probably immortal, form changing, and cursing my surroundings creature, not just a simple leafeon like she thought. She was afraid only after I told her about another world and how I avoided my destiny. She was probably still alive, I heard her race could live tremendously long, but she was the past for me, with all rest. I didn't regret anything that I had done. It was hard and took me more than a year but I accepted that. I really wanted to be different than I was now but quickly found that I couldn't change myself to say that I am just another eeveelution. My life was still much better than I ever thought it could be.

I went to sleep in my new fridge, it wasn't very comfortable but it was better than nothing.

* * *

-Fear-

A forest around me was cursed. From the highest trees to the lowest blade of grass: plants were in a completely black colour and they were actually moving in attempts to catch anything that would try to pass close to them. They wanted to taste blood in its root, to tear a meat in its leaves, to kill every creature living and walking in this world. That was how this world will look like after my ruler Giratina ends his job here. The sky was covered in black and heavy clouds but that wasn't raining yet, from time to time powerful thunder shook the ground and tore ears in its loud bass rumble.

It was almost midnight, the moon was high appearing any occasionally between the darkness of the sky. I started the last part of my mission in this world. To open a portal between universes and let Giratina conquer this world. But I was full of doubts. Did I really wanted to do this? I hated the Distortion World, the world without life, without light, just the world of craziness, floating rocks, giant pillars and toxic clouds. Where the only living things were the giant ghost dragon and her slaves. Was I born there? I don't know but I also didn't remember anything different than the Distortion World. I was there as long as I remember, learning how to control my abilities, fighting with delusions. Now I remember this only as a blurry nightmare. I felt good in the world which I was in at this moment, I had the blue sky above me the solid ground under me and food was almost everywhere. My original universe hadn't any of this. And what will happen after I succeed with my mission? Will this globe become a copy of Distortion World? Or Giratina will find a way to escalate my ability to change objects, making this place even worse?

Was that my whole life? Just to curse some ground to open a single portal? Actually it wasn't that easy but still, I don't want to end my existence like that. I made my decision.

"No," I said aloud to myself and to monstrous plants around me. "I am something more and I will prove it."

I was a slave of my leader, and now I was breaking my chain. It was the midnight and storm started raining, a first bolt appeared in the sky quickly followed by the roar. Two seconds later second bolt hit the ground close to me. I could feel the energy of an electricity going through the ground. I absorbed energy from the lighting changing my form to my dark spiky-furred appearance.

"I will be free, completely free," I said in the voice of lunatic which completely didn't sound like mine.

The next bolt hit the ground destroying trees and everything close to them burning and melting it instantly. They made a low loud sound before they died. Then hit second, third and another, and then everything went white from the light of hundreds of lightings as the ground become full of holes and dust flow in every direction.

* * *

It was my fifth day on the junkyard, living here was the most boring thing what I had to do from very long time. Nothing interesting was happening here and ratatas weren't even a challenge to catch, they were very vulnerable to my eyes so I didn't even need to chase them. The good thing was a fact that my ability to change form was almost back. I already could feel energies going through me, responding to the changing environment. I left the junkyard behind me when I started to walk in an opposite direction then I arrived here. East.

An hour had passed as I left the outskirts, a small discharge went through my body. Finally. My powers were back and I immediately felt how grass under me started giving me its energy. After a quarter I was in a one of my favourite bright green and dim yellow with a leaf-like tail form. Grass under me lost its bright green colour and now it was a faded green. Happily, I continued going to the east.

Six hours had passed as I heard conversation from my right direction. I was curious who decided to yell in the middle of the forest and maybe to find out how this pokemon tasted. I followed voices keeping close to the ground sneaking without making any sound. On a small clearing between walls of the forest trees, which appeared before me were sitting three black dogs with their evolved version before them.

 _Wait, those were the same hunters who found my home._

But more surprising was who was sitting at the front of the leader of the dog's pack. Before him was orange furred Rea, and she was yelling on the familiar looking houndoom.

"...st week and you still have nothing, you were only able to lose one of your co-workers, I won't pay you until I will see any progress. I heard you are the best hunter, Gloim. But for now, you did nothing more than locals." She was angry, when she was yelling a small flame escaped from her mouth.

"But this thing is like a ghost, we checked every room in its cave and we didn't find another exit, it just disappeared," said the leader of dogs pack, now known as Gloim. "We also didn't find the furret's body. It doesn't make sense. How some monster can live here, slaying everyone he meets, even groups of dragons, fit into the tight tunnel and after twenty years still be unseen, not to mention about changing plants into something that I can't even name." These dragons weren't easy, I spend three nights to deal with them, mostly because I couldn't penetrate their scales and their size also was very problematic but the acid was enough to do this for me.

"Maybe this is some kind of a legendary snake or something," said one of the houndours.

 _Sssseriousssly?_

"Legendaries doesn't exist, Goin," answered another.

"I don't even hear about a legendary snake and we saw footprints, snakes don't have feet," added a third houndour.

"Maybe this one has," insisted the first of smaller dogs.

" SHUT UP! I don't care what that thing is, I want him gone and it's your job, you have a week" shouted Rea. I was curious how her reaction would be if someone would tell her that the mystery creature was that "cub" which she met a week ago. The meeting ended and Rea walked out of the clearing leaving the hunters group.

"What will we do now, I don't want to mess with the leader of a 'Rising Sun'," said the houndoom who thought that I'm a snake. Rising Sun? It's an organisation which tries to discover an ancient knowledge about a beginning of the world, the creator and other similar stuff but why they are interested in my wood? Is there a something valuable somewhere underground or because of my curse?

"We will look through this dark forest again for any mark of this monster, if we don't find anything again we will set this wood on the fire," planned Gloim " If we don't find him after this, then that will mean that this thing is already gone. We have a week and we are able to get to the mountain in two days, that leaves us with three days of searching and two to atomise these freaked plants."

When my curiosity was fulfilled, I decided to go after Rea. When they were talking it is started to becoming dark and a silver disc of the moon appeared in the sky. I used the moonlight to change my appearance to the dark type. I liked this form for very big fangs, compared to other forms. I manage to catch up to Rea after ten minutes of a silent walk.

She was alone, walking in the direction of some faraway lights. She was passing between two giant rocks with very smooth sides. Then I noticed, these rocks were making an echo to her steps and a new idea appeared in my mind. I hid in a bush behind a corner of one of the rocks.

"What business the 'Rising Sun' have in my dark forest?" I asked loudly.

 _A lame name for my wood._

She immediately stopped moving and looked in the completely opposite direction to this where I was. Like I thought echo was making their job.

"Who is talking?" she asked not showing any sign of being scared or surprised

"Your favourite legendary snake," I answered. Her facial expression was worth all risk what I was now taking.

"W-what, it can't be, you shouldn't be here, we are far away from that mountain It it..." she started to panic, my voice as an umbreon sounds quite coarse

"Silence, I don't bother myself to speak to a corpse, so answer me or we will stop talking." I didn't want to kill her because I didn't want to break my own rules. So, I hoped she would answer.

I heard her heavy breathing, I guess she was trying to calm herself before she answered.

"There is something," she said in low voice. "Somewhere in your wood, I don't know any details about this, we even didn't start looking for this," There is probably a some cured rock or something similar, some of the most changed by me could look as some ancient artefact, it wouldn't be the first time when someone may think about them like about something valuable. Why are they wasting their time for that?

"I thought Rising Sun is interested how the world had started. Twenty years ago everything here was the normal forest. You can take with you some rocks or plants if you want but everything that you can get from them will be some illness."

"Wait, illness? This is something that we should know? What you know?" Why does she always have a question to me? She was looking directly at my hideout, probably random direction for her searching for a source of my voice.

"I know enough to know that you shouldn't be interested int…," I couldn't finish when a huge flame came into my hiding spot. That was Rea's flame. I jumped out of the bush which was burned to an ash.

"Wow, I didn't think your ears can be good enough to find the right direction," I said to her, now she could see me. I noticed that if she wasn't the biggest flareon of this world and wasn't even close to it, she was still taller than me. Even if I could take the appearance of evolved form I never really evolved, because of that I never could keep the size of fully mature eeveelution usually looking undersized. I know she didn't stand a chance to my speed and she could be already dead but I respect my small amount of rules. She was standing little shocked.

"What!? Just Umbreon!? You tricked me!" she was yelling ...again, and this was actually hurting my sensitive lugs. "From what organisation are you, who want to be my competition?" Is there even a competition in gathering fossils?

"I'm not your competition, now answer me how many is interested into that curse," Would it be right for me to torture her? I need to talk to myself about that. "Hurry."

" I won't tell you anything!" she opened her muzzle to throw her fire at me again but before she could do this I jumped at her, faster than she could even blink, I closed her mouth with my paw and looked in her eyes. She will be a challenge for me but this was worth a try. After fifteen minutes of staring eye to eye and litres of Rea's sweat, her sight became blurry, she was resisting a really long time.

" How many?" I asked again but as I expected she wasn't vulnerable enough to my ability to make her answer me but she probably still could hear me in her dream.

"It would be better for you to forget about this thing what made you came here," I ran away into the dark forest before I would lose the rest of my energy. Actions like mind control were draining my strength pretty fast. Especially when I was using this on the strong-minded person. I wasn't done for this night. I planned to check where Rea was going.

* * *

Like I was planning that I was done. I was sneaking close to the clearing to which Rea was earlier walking. There was a single tent in the middle of two campfires. The tent was very typical, in a delta shape with cloth white walls.

 _Why have they the tent? Can't they sleep under the sky?_

No one was outside, campfires were going off giving a dim light to the surrounding. There was also a big metal cage behind the tent. The cage was two meters tall and three long and was empty.

 _Are they hunting for something or something escaped them?_

Before I went any closer I smudged my Umbreon's form rings to cover their shine. I slipped into the centre of the camp close to the tent. I could hear only snoring, breathing and calm beating of their sleeping hearts. I entered the tent, on the floor were lying five creatures, three of them covered in a shared yellow blanket. But what got my interest was a map which was on the ground in the centre of sleeping bodies.

On the map I could see the single mountain and the forest, there was also a lot of 'X' letters and arrows mainly close to my cave. I noticed that arrows were covering my typical path of the walking. No matter how silent I would walk I always leave some marks. So I know now they are tracking me but I still don't know what they are looking for. Aside from the map, I found dry food, an empty bag and a single device in shape of the cuboid, it wasn't bigger than my head. I hadn't much time before the sunset so I exited the tent and returned to the forest. After they wake up, it will be my turn to track them.

The sun appeared moment after I found a blind on the tree branch. In my grass form, it will be impossible to see me here. I had a clear view of the glade where the single tent was standing.

After an hour I heard some talking from the tent but I wasn't able to understand any words. Another hour passed and they were still talking and that made me bored. I was expecting tracking full of hiding and action, what I got was lying on the branch and waiting. My eyelids started to be heavy and short yawn escaped my mouth. I didn't even notice when I fall asleep.

* * *

" JUST KILL THEM, KILL THEM ALL," the very familiar voice of the maniac shouted in my mind.

"Shut up Sinar, we are trying to sleep," answered another voice, now calmer and with a more friendly voice.

"It's pointless trying to shut him up Myron," added a third voice, this one was dark and cold.

I was in the biggest room of my grotto in my neutral form and before me were standing, lying, swimming or sitting all my seven forms.

"THEY NEED TO BE DEAD, SHE SEEN US, SHE SEEN OUR EYES, SHE TOLD THEM, THEY KNOW" shouted Sinar the Jolteon walking from the side to the side of the cave "We will sneak into their tent and and murder yes murder them, as fast as we can or faster, then we will cut their heads and legs and and BLOOD…"

The rest of his talk was mumbling, random shouts, and chuckles, which wasn't possible to understand.

"I will let you make a tea from my leaves when he will stop acting like a lunatic," said Myron the Leafeon.

"Zenon and I will willingly use you like that," that was the Flareon, he doesn't have a name. I was using him so rarely that I never even gave a name to this form.

Zenon the Vaporeon happily nodded, his head was the only thing which was above the water of the pond.

" Do you remember that I or we can use only the one element?" I asked

" Lucky Sinar," hissed Snowid the Glaceon, his voice sounds like rub metal by metal.

" Hey, guys, what are you thinking about this situation with these scavengers?" they were my imagination so they didn't know anything more than me but I liked to believe that they are something more.

" I THINK THEY SHOULD BE DEAD," screamed my electric-type form from another side of the cave. That cavern was my mind so he hadn't any problems to hear me.

"It's obvious that they are not trying to find any cursed stone, stones don't need cages," said the calmest person of the pack, Myron.

" They are hunting for us," the mysterious voice of my dark-type form filled the silence.

"Then we don't have anything to worry about, even if they will catch us, we can live hundreds of years. They don't have that much time," said my winter form. Snowid, Myron, and Kilian the Umbreon had the most developed personality as I was used them most frequently. So they always had always something to say.

" And before we wake up, no we don't allow tortures on familiar to us creatures," add Myron when my sight was becoming dark

Good to know what I'm thinking.

* * *

I woke up on the same branch on which I fell asleep. Something wasn't right, I could smell a dim scent fumes. Suddenly I felt the heat of the fire on my left side quickly followed by a cut of a something sharp. I had fallen from the tree, hitting the ground with a loud thud and disgusting crack of bone. I wasn't bleeding, I don't even have blood. From my wound was dark and dense smoke, but wasn't dissipating in the air. This smoke was standing close to injuries, covering them. That was my healing system. I tried to get up but I almost immediately collapsed. One of my front legs was broken, also I felt a horrible pain in my chest. A new wave of fire came, hitting my face, melting my skin and burning my eyes but I wasn't screaming. I was blinded, I felt that my eyes are open but all that I saw was darkness. I tried to depend on a different sense, like the connection to the plants of my leafeon form. Then I could sense every single stalk of grass, falling leaves from trees, and four sources of concentrated energy of life.

One of them was close to my left, others were hiding nearby. I wanted to fight back but my body was too much damaged. I only managed to lift my head to hear them better. Someone was almost in front of me and I heard his voice.

"Die finally, a hellhound," and a powerful force struck the top of my head, then I no more could feel rest of my body and I fell down to the ground.


	2. Chapter 2 'Nature'

-Hate-

"Again,"

"Again,"

"Again,"

"Again, you need to be faster than that," screamed powerful voice above me, I had my eyes closed enjoying my time when I could just lie motionless "Don't think about killing, just kill, it's the only one thing that you need to learn, what you need to master."

 _I did well, I won_. I thought but didn't say anything.

"You will do it again, now without any hesitate which you will regret later,"

The game was simple. I needed to win with illusions or Giratina will make me suffer. I was in the center of a forest which is one of the only few places in the Distortion World which, if Giratina was telling the truth, were looking very similar to the main world. This field was to prepare me for my mission in the unknown.

The trees in the distortion world were mostly the same, the red bark and the short and simple leaves in obscure green color. Bushes had deep blue color and were two meters tall. The ground was made of the brown stone. That was enough to imitate the another world. After I did my training well, Giratina found another place where I did a similar training again and after this, another place and even more training, that is my life routine. I never did anything different, I was fighting until I passed out and after I woke up I immediately was set for different training. At this moment it was a cold night with thin fog close to the ground.

I needed to become fast, invisible and deadly. I knew that my superior had a mission for me which is connected with some conflict between her and other similar to her creatures. I know only about some fight between them and I guessed that Giratina lost. This trio who won made the barrier which precludes contact with the another world. I didn't know what help I would be in a fight with something that she couldn't win alone but that wasn't my choice. All that I could do was following her orders.

My mission didn't sound hard. It will be some kind of going through a hole in that barrier and use my last learned ability to gain some energy to destroy the barrier.

I had awhile before the serpentine dragon will be back to tell me where is a new place of my training. My exercises weren't the worst thing which I needed to face, much worse were the changes. Every time when I was forced to make contact with purple clouds which were floating here randomly, something inside me started to change. First thing was that I become much faster than I should be. First days after this were horrible. I completely hadn't control on it and I hurt myself many times bumping into trees, walls, and other things which were on my way. With that I gained my biggest weakness: I become much more vulnerable to any hit and lost a lot of weight.

The second change was that I couldn't eat normal plants anymore. At first, that was annoying but with time I became accustomed to this.

The third was my evolution which was also by contact with that cloud, I gained access to many new forms but I could change only by contact with each element.

My last transmutation changes my eyes and added ability to give some dark energy to my surroundings. That allowed me to eat fruits again but only after they gained a lot of this energy.

Every single alteration was very painful and I always felt that I'm losing some part of real me each time I was changing. The most fearful moment was back then when I get a deep injury and dark smoke appeared from the wound. Then I started thinking.

 _How much of me is in me and in what am I changing?_

Suddenly the world around me turned to white for one second, that mean one thing. New training has started. For my surprise, it wasn't that much different environment than before.

I was in my night form, the best choice to fight because bites of this form were much more dangerous than in others forms. I was already hiding waiting for my opponents to appear. After a minute I saw them. There were four of them.

I never learned, were they just illusions or they were the real ones? This time my opponents were canine four-legged creatures with gray fur and muzzles full of sharp teeth. I hated them, not because how they look or what were they doing, I hated them because they were somehow linked to Giratina. I could feel how the fire of rage starts burning inside me. It won't be easy, they were very good at working as a team. They split into two group, first two runs in opposition direction to me, and other two started walking to my left.

Close to the ground, I changed my position to the bush closer to walking couple. I let the first one pass but when the second was close to me I jumped out of bushes sinking my teeth deeply in his back leg. I was clamping my jaw until my top fangs met lower cutting his skin, muscles and breaking a bone. Without his leg, he fell on his side and before he could do anything I bit his neck making the big gap where his throat should be. He started gasping for the air, I bit again cutting his head completely from rest of his body.

When he was dead I quickly dodged the sharp talons of the second mightyena. I started to blinking my yellow rings randomly to confuse him and I made a step to right. Like I expected he shifted his center of gravity to his left forepaw, lowering his head to the ground. That was his mistake.

I jumped to his left still illuminating lights. He tried to avoid me but I already was tearing meat from his side. I was too fast for him and a moment later he was lying like the first one. My mouth was full of their blood and I still had some of their skin and meat between my teeth. I felt much better now, almost happy, I always imagined that Giratina can feel the pain of my actions. Days when her minions could hurt me already passed but I still hadn't any chance to fight with her, so I stayed silent not showing my satisfaction. Two more to go. I could already feel the first sight of being tired. The second group probably heard the fight and they will be here soon. I needed to take them by surprise and kill first of them fast to make one versus one fight. I run to the north part of the fake forest and climbed on the tree. I changed my form to leafeon to be similar to leaves of the tree.

"Enough," the powerful voice echoed from every direction. The wood disappeared. Typical scenery of the distortion world returned to sight.

I was standing on a one of many floating in the void giant bare rocks in dim brown color. Before me was floating a giant serpentine ghost dragon with wings like dark fumes ended by red claws. Her body was gray with red bands on the front side of the body. From both sides were jutting gold long spikes. Her head had powerful yellow pincers which were now open showing her mouth. On her neck were gold incomplete rings. She was looking at me and her eyes were glowing red from above.

She immediately went to the point "You proved your strength and you are ready to go. Now you will face the 'true world'. "

Suddenly I was in a small but strong tornado which appeared from her mouth. The world around me started to spin faster and faster and I passed out.

When I woke up I immediately jumped on my feet and I looked around. I was on a smooth and flat floor made of something which looked like ice but wasn't cold or slippery. On my left was a gigantic wall, I couldn't see where is the end of that wall, it was long in both directions and tremendously high. I noticed that I returned to my normal eevee form.

I looked again at the wall, Giratina mentioned something about a hole in that wall which could lead me to my destination. I saw the hole, it was almost at front of me and it was in a size that I needed to crawl to fit into that.

Luckily my eyes still could see perfectly in darkness, there were actually very interesting things, it seems that they had every advantage of every of my form, with them I could see very good in darkness and in bright light also I never had problems to see underwater , they could hypnotize someone who looked into them and were very resilient to ash. The tunnel was full of switchbacks, leading mainly upward and after few hours of forcing my way through I became tired. So I just stopped where I was to rest a little. It was completely silent here.

How will the new world be? Will it be a dangerous place full of monsters which will be hating me trying to kill me everywhere I will go? Or I will be this one who is more dangerous?

After a while, I was able to continue my journey and after another hour the tunnel started to change: stone walls became dirtier and the air was now fresher. I passed another corner and I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. New determination filled me when I started to moving faster to the exit.

I have never before been able to see something that beautiful. Above me were millions of small bright points lighting a landscape where plants were growing but that wasn't normal plants, that were trees, bushes, flower and grass of origin. Every single of them was different from the others. I could feel the energy of them so fresh, so powerful, so new. I looked behind me. There wasn't the even sight of the hole from which I exited a second ago.

I didn't know how much time passed while I was staring at the landscape but I noticed that my point of view changed. The world around me became smaller and my view was much further from the ground. I could feel that I was in my night form, but why did I transform into that if it's so bright here? Isn't that supposed to be a day? I decided to investigate this later.

I started walking to a random direction, I needed to find some good place to start my curse to gain enough energy to make a connection between two worlds also when the opportunity arises, to learn more about this world.

* * *

I woke up in some kind of a metal cage. The cage had only small holes to provide air. Why am I dreaming about my past again? That was one of my most enjoyable memories. The day when I made the first step to my freedom.

I checked how my healing process ended. All of my legs were fully operational. I could see again and I didn't feel any pain. Then I heard some noises from outside of the cage. Someone was hitting a wall or a door.

"You can't stay inside forever spare my time and open this," yelled a hoarse voice definitely from another side of the door.

"Fuck off!" It's the second time I heard this voice within a minute after waking up. I hope that won't become a routine of my mornings.

"You are still barking, I'm even sad that you will not be allowed to see what will we create from that body in that cage."

I looked via hole to see what is going on there and I saw a hall with many containers and barrels on the clean white floor, the lights were on but it wasn't very bright in there. The two winged door were blocked by a heavy looking pole which was placed across both of door handle. Rea was staying in front of me looking at door's direction.

"Some angry customer?" I asked loud enough to be heard only by Rea. In the same moment, doors get another hit which bent the pole hazardously.

"Wha.." started Rea, turning to my cage, but I interrupt her.

"We can have a talk but it seems that you are in trouble, so maybe we will make a deal. Open the cage and I will defend you from anything is behind this door."

"But you will kill me, it's me who rented Gloim pack an.."- I needed to cut her off again. Why she can't understand that her and probably mine life is in danger.

"I will not, now open this cage or this door, it's your choice."

Rea one more time looked at the now almost opened door and then she unlocked the cage's door. Then the pole sprang, and a big gray humanoid pokemon ran into to the hall. And that was the moment when the time slowed down or just me speed up, The new intruder was a gray two-legged creature, he had a beak-like mouth, a lot of muscles and four arms. His torso was without any protection so I aimed into that. I jumped as fast as I could at him and I exaggerated this a little because I didn't felt any resistance in the moment when I should meet his chest. Rea let short scream after I landed on all fours on another side of the hall. Because of that dream, I forgot that I don't need to use my entire strength for actions like fighting.

" _YEEEAAA, FINALLY BLOOD, MEAT, DEATH, KILL_ " my yellow appearance reminded about its existence. I wasn't usually listening to him but he had a point now, meat. So I turned to four handed creatures which were now lying two meters behind me and started to satisfy my hunger but after few bites, I heard a thud from cage's direction. When I took a look into that direction I saw that Rea passed out and was lying on her side.

 _Isn't she eating meat too?_

I decided that is no time to waste and I made my way to the exit. When I was about to leave the hall I looked one more time into the cage direction. Rea still was lying there unconscious.

" _We shouldn't leave her her_ e," protested Myron.

" _Why no, she will only slow us down,_ " replied Kilian. " _We are the bad one, we don't help others_ "

Both of them were right: if there were more of her foes she won't stay alive but if I take her with me we both can die.

"Black and white melt into gray," I answered them when I was walking to the lying flareon "...but this gray still seems to be bright."

These were words I heard when I saved ... ah, why I'm thinking about her again. I promised myself that I won't look back into the past again.

I catch Rea by the fur on the tail by my mouth and started dragging her out of the hall. Outside I noticed how big this building is, and more surprising was that it's in the middle of the forest. It was too close to the building to leave Rea here so I dragged her deeper into the forest. She was much heavier than I thought, I started wondering if every eeveelution is heavy like she or only flareons. When I was far enough to lose building from my sight of view I stopped dragging Rea and I looked around. It must have been raining because there were a lot of puddles around. There was springtime so rains were quite often. I drunk water from one of them and washed my head quickly in another one.

"Where, whaa... " mumbled a voice behind me. "What is this place?"

" I don't know, maybe you should tell me, " I said turning to now standing Rea. When she saw me I noticed the fear in her eyes, she started moving fast backward until she bumped into a tree.

"Please, don't eat me, pleease..." she was ...crying? "I didn't want to hunt you they threatened me, I had no choice please spare me, please, please..."

"Stop yelling! I don't want to eat you, why you even think I would?" I asked,

Didn't she notice that she was in the forest and she couldn't just teleport here, there was no sense into saving her only to eat her.

"You, you really don't want to eat me? But, but you ate that machamp, and you are the m-monster from the mountain, you probably ate little Sinar too, why wouldn't you eat me?" she asked in the shaky voice still looking at me horrified.

 _Sinar? So is she thinking that I ate myself?_

"Now are you trying to convince me? Listen, Rea, I said that I will save you if you open the cage, and I kept my promise. I saved you, now I will go in my way, you will go in yours and we probably won't see each other again," When I said this I started moving into random direction just to make some distance between me and Rea.

" _I started to like her,_ " informed Myron. " _Some company would be nice after so long time of being alone, maybe you would even stop thinking that someone is talking to you._ "

"Shut up, I'm not thinking like that," I said aloud to my imagination.

" _So what you are doing right now,_ " told Zenon. I forgot they aren't real. I remain silent.

I wasn't walking long when I heard sounds of running behind me and second later I saw Rea running toward me.

"Wait! Tell me, what do I need to do to break the curse? What are your requirements?" she asked me breathing heavy and avoiding eye contact. I still could hear that her voice was nervous.

 _Requirements? Had I any requirements?_

"Whats requirements? I don't have any," I answered not sure if I understood her.

"You don't, so isn't it any devil pact? Then curse! What will happen to me? Will I die in suffering or someone other will die in suffering? Or will I suffer after I die or both?" she panicked speaking very quickly.

"No, I think you will.." she cut me with another attack of panic.

"Oh no! So I will change into something, tell me into what I will change. Into a rock? a tree? A monster like you?" I started wondering how good the legends about me must be if she was so afraid only after she just saw me.

"I think you..." I start talking louder than before but she was able again to prevent me from finishing my sentence.

"Noo, that left only one option. I will change into a human, please say what I can do to get this of me," she was about to begin cry again.

 _Her fantasies are interesting._

"I think you will be fine," I said fast and loudly so she wasn't able to interrupt me.

"What? No curse? No devil pacts? I was just saved because I opened the cage?" She asked, surprised. "But monsters doesn't work like that."

 _Now she will teach me how to be a good monster._

"Good to know, I will leave you now" I was already walking.

"Wait!" she ran up to me and now we were walking side by side "So if you don't want to eat me and you don't give me any curse then maybe you are not a monster?"

 _Maybe I just can't give curses, or not that fast_

I didn't answer her and I started to think that leaving her in the hall was very good idea.

"Maybe you are some god of eons? Or something like that," her nervous voice disappeared without sight, replaced by the voice of curiosity.

I heard many theories about what I could be but I never even thought that someone will think about me like a god. I even felt some kind of pride.

"Oh, but if you are a god you need to be very weak one if a simple cage can jail you," added Rea after a while and all my pride left me.

"No, I'm not a god but don't you have anything better to do than asking me over and over again? Aren't you a leader of some exploratory pack? You probably have a lot of work. You started being annoying week before you caught me and it started to getting me angry," it was very annoying. For now, I must focus on other important things. Who wanted to catch me, where he got know about me and for what purpose. I knew where I can find these answers. I needed to go back to places where I could leave some tracks and I didn't like this idea.

"'Rising Sun' doesn't exist anymore, but I didn't meet you the week before Gloim caught you, I met ...no, can you change into eevee too?" she seems shocked.

I stopped moving and I looked at Rea.

"Every eeveelution I have tried, but I never tried sylveon," _Generally, with what should I make contact with to change into that?_ She could have some important information for me, "You said someone was threatening you to catch me, who?"

Rea didn't reply immediately, she sat down thinking, after a while, her face expression changed from unsure to determined.

"I never met him, he was always sending someone different but it seems to be someone who has authority, he always knew where I was and what is dear to me." she stopped talking starting at the ground

That left me only one option but where should I go first?

Maybe to the place where I was examined, in this place still could be some information about me which somehow survived. But first I needed to go back to my cave. I wanted to start walking again but I reminded myself that I still didn't know where I was. I looked around. Trees, grass, bushes, nothing that could help me to find the right way, then I saw that Rea was still starting at the ground in some kind of a trance.

"Hey, Rea, do you still want to know something about me?" I asked but I already knew how her answer will be "If you help me get to my mountain I will allow you to give me three, three questions which I will answer" I didn't know why but three seems to be a fair number.

She woke up from her trance and looked at me. She was trying look like she was thinking but her answer wasn't different than I was expecting. "I think it's a fair deal, follow me."

She stood up and started walking in opposite direction then I firstly planned to go. The wood around remain the same as we were walking, shady green spruces were everywhere and the ground under them was overlain by needle-cover. Soon it started to becoming dark when the sun started hiding behind the horizon. Rea spent all the time looking straight ahead, thinking about something. I could always change into espeon because of the bright sun above and read her mind but I thought that isn't any important thing for me. After a while, it became completely dark and Rea turned to me.

"I not sure if you need to sleep but I need to, so if you don't mind we will stay here for the night," she said, curling close to the nearby tree.

"Sure," I replied, I wasn't sleepy yet: the healing process had left me in good shape so I will probably spend this night wandering somewhere around. I felt that I couldn't keep my grass form any longer so I started transforming. Fur become black and more abundant, the tail becomes much shorter and yellow rings appeared giving weak glow around me.

"That looked ...disgusting," commented Rea yawing.

No caring about her words I made my way into the forest leaving her under the tree. Even if I would sleep now I couldn't do that close to her, I needed to remember that I was all the time emitting energy which I had gained from toxic clouds in distortion world. She should be fine if she will have contact with me only during the day. I wasn't hungry yet but the night was still young and I didn't want to hunt in the day, so I started looking for some track of any potential prey. I felt the cold wind blowing from the north, this wind was carrying scents. I sensed odor of spruce's needles, some fruits and scent of flareon, nothing interesting. I decided I will go in opposite to the wind direction but no straight ahead. After few minutes I found a tight stream of water in the low ground depression. I followed the path close to the stream, still nothing, I started to doubt that anything lives in that wood.

 _What doesn't leave tracks? Birds, but they leave scent and I couldn't sense anything._

I sat down at the small beach of the stream and looked into the water. I didn't know what I'm waiting for but looking at the stream was relaxing, then in the water reflection, I saw a pair of red eyes floating in a corona of a tree. These eyes weren't connected to the body, there were surrounded by nothing.

 _Ghosts!_

I quickly looked around. Is it possible that it's their nest? I was in umbreon form so they shouldn't bother me but this time I wasn't alone. I speed up to the place where Rea had fallen asleep. The short distance and the speed I ran made it almost like teleportation. Then I saw, close under Rea's head was a floating dark mass, with two white eyes, which was outstretching their sharp not connected to the rest of his body tri-claws. I jumped forward but aiming at sleeping Rea moving her in time to make her avoid talons made of shadow. The Haunter wasn't much surprised and let out a loud bloodcurdling scream, almost immediately other similar voices echoed from every direction.

"What is happening?" screamed Rea fully woke up.

"Don't talk, run!" I screamed back, pushing her in the direction where I thought I hadn't heard the roars of ghosts. Rea was running fast but I still needed to slow down to let her keep up with me. I saw that she was stumbling so I increased a glow of the rings. I looked back to see how bad our situation was. It was very bad, behind me weren't only several ghosts, it was the whole horde flying toward us screaming and howling as one big mass of darkness, with many white and red eyes, which was engulfing the forest behind us. That was when Rea looked back. It seems like new energy filled her, screaming she sped up so fast that I started to doubt that my abilities are unique. It also started to be incredibly hot close to her. After a while of running, I noticed that I didn't hear ghosts and trees around disappeared replaced by a large clearing. When I looked back I saw that no one is chasing us.

"Rea, we escaped!" I call to her but she wasn't listening, still running. "You can stop running now!" but it also didn't come to her.

I outran her and blocked her path. That wasn't the good idea, she rammed me like a train sending me flying on the ground not even losing her speed.

"Hey, wait!" I screamed after her but she was too far to hear me. Then I noticed that black fumes started to cover me.

 _Did I hurt something?_

I remained lying on the ground but something was different, I didn't feel the same thing what I usually felt while I'm recovering, I was feeling something inside of me what was expanding.

 _Oh no, I'm changing again!_

Then a horrible pain filled me, it was like being burning and freezing at the same time, someone was screaming but who? The pain focused on my head and then I noticed that that scream was mine. The pain disappeared that fast as it appeared leaving me huddled on the ground. I shakily stood up. I thought that all my abilities were already escalated and I will never feel that pain again.

I looked at my appearance, nothing as always, so it must be something inside. It won't be easy to find out what it was, probably I need to wait for some accident which will reveal what new is inside of me.

I decided to investigate this after I find Rea. I stood up and started walking in the direction where Rea was running. She couldn't be far, she has her limits. Her tracks were very visible in the grass, she probably revealed her claws in the fear.

Rea was much further than I thought she would be. She was lying on the ground trying to catch her breath. I laid on the ground too but in a distance. Then she noticed me.

"Tha-thanks, and sor-sorry," she said panting and she collapsed on her side. I felt that I'm tired too so I did the same.

* * *

I was dreaming. Everything was blurry I could see only that I was outside of the hall where I woke up earlier, close to the door of the building were Rea and some creatures at front of her, I couldn't identify them they were looking like colorful fog.

"Did you bring it?" I recognized that voice. It was the machamp that I killed in the hall.

"It's is in the cage inside," answered Rea emotionless.

"Good," said the same humanoid creature and kicked Rea straight in the face sending her inside of the building. "You two, go on the other side of the hall, I don't want to let her escape"

* * *

I woke up in the same clearing where me and Rea fell asleep. The sun was high in the sky and the day was warm.

" _What will we eat today?_ "

" _This cloud looks awesome._ "

" _Leave me alone._ "

" _I saw a real sandwich today!_ "

Unknown voices echoed around causing me a powerful headache. I jumped on my feet looking around but I didn't see anyone in sight.

"Shut up, shut up!" I tried to outshout them but I couldn't.

" _Who is screaming?_ " this was Rea's voice but I didn't hear her, it just appeared in my mind. Then I noticed that my paws were in lavender color, I looked behind and I saw the split tail. I quickly forced my powers to change me to leafeon and luckily I didn't overload this time. Voices immediately disappeared but I still had a headache. I always could read some others thoughts in form of espeon but now it was like hearing the thoughts of everyone on this continent.

 _Maybe that was my last change?_

Gaining powers of other than a jolteon form was actually pretty good but I need to learn how to use them. I looked at Rea, she was still sleeping, I decided to wait until she gets up.

My thoughts drifted. Who can be this mysterious person who wants me? Is it a human or pokemon? What is his motivation? Was it looking for me because he wanted to use me for something, examine me or just to kill me? Any of this option wasn't comfortable for me but I couldn't just wait for him, I could hide, I could be undetected even standing just at front of that someone but what if will he learns more about me in the meantime?

And what I need to learn about myself? I had changed only by contact with violet toxic clouds in the distortion world, was it because I touched Rea? I had contact with creatures from the real world before and nothing like this never happened. Maybe Giratina found another option to destroy the barrier between the two worlds?

I noticed that Rea stood up and yawned. The sun in the sky showed that it was midday.

"Good morning," acknowledged the female flareon. That was rather mid of the day and waking up with a headache made my morning far from being good.

"How far is the mountain?" I asked. I had hoped that we weren't that far but I didn't know how long I was unconscious. It could be a week or a month, I was very lucky that I woke up at the last moment to escape.

"I think we will arrive at the evening."

As we were walking Rea was silently contemplating again and only from time to time she looked at me. Soon I could see the familiar U-shaped mountain surrounded by thick and dark forest. From here I could make the rest of the journey alone.

"I know the terrain from here, ask your three questions fast and we can split up," I said facing her. I could guess what she would ask me. She didn't ask immediately. I thought that she will give me questions faster than I will be able to understand them but she was thinking, looking at me focused on something in her mind.

"I was wondering, can I exchange these questions for something different?" she asked faintly.

"For what?" What could she want more than questions?

"For one favor." What could she want from me? I only hoped that she knew what I can and what I can't do. "But you need to agree, no matter for what I will ask." That was fine for me, to do some task for her and not reveal anything about me.

"What it will be, that 'favor'?" I asked slowly, I didn't want to show her that this option was fine for me.

"You will escort me to my pack." This sounded more like a command than asking for a favor but that was acceptable.

"Yesterday you were afraid that I will eat you and now you want me to keep you safe," I said with faked doubt in my voice. "What makes you think that you will be safe with me?"

"You saved me two times in two days and you can take on easily everyone who will try to kill me." That probably is about what she was thinking during our short trip.

"What is a name of your pack?" I knew only a few of them, and to get to the closest one will take a few days.

"Nysy" I knew where that group was and it was in the same direction of the place which I planned to visit.

"I will take you there."

She only nodded and I continued walking into the mountain direction, I started getting hungry though it's no time for hunting. After our talk, Rea remained silent and was looking at the dark environment. She will be the first one who will leave this wood alive. We arrived at the entrance to my cave at midnight but Rea probably didn't know that because days here was dark like the nights. She probably needed sleep again so I guided her to the mid-sized room where I usually sleep, during the walk she was helping herself to see, using a small flame to light up the tunnel. The room was completely ruined: dry leaves which always were covering cold rock floor were burned to ash, pears, and oranges which had been keeping the cave in pleasure scent were trample down and their scent was far from nice, also some memorabilia which I had been keeping here were gone. Angry, I guided her to the high grotto with the lake.

"It's night now so you probably need to sleep, I will return to you at morning," I informed her. "And don't touch the water," I added while I was walking out of the cave.

I stopped for a while outside, thinking that someone sleeping in my cave was unpleasant. My hunger reminded me of what I went outside for, it was very unlikely to find some prey so I went along side of the mountain until I found a tight road which went along the mountainside to one of the peaks.

I didn't even notice when a yellow light appeared around me, I was changing my appearance so often that I stopped looking at it. The peak was flat and everyone would say that nothing was here but I knew that wasn't true.

The ground here wasn't made from rock but from loose debris. I dug in place close to the edge of the top and quickly found what I was looking for. In the newly made hole were black and red oblong balls. These balls were pears twenty years ago but after they spent some time in the affection of energy from the distortion world they changed into the black round and tasteless things with thick and tough skin. I ate few of them, this should be enough for me for next day or two.

" _Back on the track are we_?" A new voice surprised me.

"Lasota, I haven't heard from you for...so long." Lasota, the name which I had as espeon, why did my imagination summon that old part of me.

" _You wanted to say that you didn't hear me since she left us._ " I didn't answer and started walking back to the cave but he wasn't done.

" _Why are you still running from your memories, she still is somewhere in this world. We know how to track her and now when we gained ability to 'hear' others mind we can find her in a week_ ,"

That was true, I could do that but what then, would I just come up to her and say: Hey, did you remember that leafeon which you met fifty years ago and which supposed to be dead now? Who was talking about the Distortion World and doom of the whole world? Yeah, that was me but now I've also destroyed a whole city, killed so many pokemon that created this legend about me as the "monster from the mountain", and now I'm wanted by some ruthless hunter. I also didn't get older by that whole time.

Genius plan, but Lasota was always following only emotions, Kilian was someone who was looking on facts. I didn't answer him but that didn't stop him from talking.

" _Didn't that time which you spent here alone teach you something? The world is waiting for you but it won't be waiting forever, you need not only to find Naert, also our fight with Giratina is still ahead, what if she found another option how to destroy the barrier. We need to kill Giratina, only that will give us serenity, we can't do that from that mountain. Let's make everything at once, now when we are leaving this place,_ " Lasota wasn't following only good emotions, he was following every strong emotion.

I didn't hear any voices for the rest of the walk. When I returned to the cave I checked Rea. She was already asleep but I saw that the end of her tail is burnt, she probably learned what was wrong with the water. Good thing that she only dipped her tail in. I went to my ruined room and curled in the middle, trying to fall asleep. I couldn't, Lasota did his job and now memories tried to remind me of past events. I needed a distraction, something on what I could focus. Best distraction always were my hunting trips but there is no time for that. I started thinking about my new eeveelutions, I needed to learn them but before I will do that espeon form will be locked for me because I couldn't handle all these voices which were making me a headache.

Trying to learn this during my trip with Rea isn't a good idea, the only way to escape a headache is force myself to change to another form but I can always overload my ability and return to a regular eevee. And I couldn't escort Rea as a normal type.

The distraction worked well and I fall asleep but I didn't sleep long. When I woke up I decided that is no sense trying to sleep more. I went outside of the cave to the small clearing. Here I could see the small fragment of the sky between of trees crowns. This night was cloudy, I couldn't see any stars, only the peaceful black sky under me. I was sitting in complete silence which was always the case in this wood. Soon the sky lit up and a new day started. I felt that I started losing my night form, so I hid from the sun to be sure that I will not change into espeon. I returned to the cave in an attempt to wake up Rea but she was already staying in the entrance.

"I said you that you shouldn't touch the water, didn't I?" I commented at her burned fur on the tail. Her response was only a glare at me. " We won't move directly to your pack it is one more place which I want to check but it's in the same direction so think about it as a shortstop."

"Are you know where my home is? But how?"

"I didn't spend my whole life in that mountain," I answered her quickly, not wanting to let the conversation escalate.

* * *

We left my mountain far behind walking towards the east. The forest around was much different than my silent and dark wood. This forest looked very old but I knew that it didn't look like that because of its age. Tall trees with huge crowns were overgrown by long green vines and ivy, bushes around were very dense.

We were walking in some kind of clearing where only grass was growing. I was walking first, Rea a few meters behind me. I could clearly see that she wanted to talk but after few hours of ignoring her and after I said 'no question' she gave up in attempts to start a conversation. It was midday, the sixth hour of our trip and our first destination was still far away but I already saw some signs which prove that we were going to the right direction. These signs actually were real road signs which were lying randomly on the edge of the long path covered by ivy. Their round discs were faded but I could remember white curved arrows on the sky blue background. I could see them only because I remember where they were lying before all this ground was covered by plants, Rea probably didn't notice anything. That was when she didn't manage to stay silent any longer.

"Do you also find that clearing is in very unnatural shape?" she asked. "I mean is so long and narrow," what a desperation to start the conversation but it was right, that wasn't natural for clearing to be so long and I knew why this one is like that. I decided that I can tell her that.

"Because it's not a clearing, it's the motorway, or it was a motorway," I answered her. It quickly took her attention she even looked quite surprised that I answered her finally.

"To where is that road leading? I never heard about any roads here," she asked looking around trying to find something that could prove that it was the road.

"It's leading to the city to which we are going," I said. The road which looks like the clearing was slowly turning left to the very high mountain pass but luckily we won't need to climb on them. We needed to go through the tunnel under them which we will arrive tomorrow.

"Shouldn't we avoid cities? It is not a place for wild pokemon," she asked confused.

"This city is dead and ruined, we won't be there for long, I just need to check something,"

The road was slowly turning left and becoming broad, after another hour, the silence of our walk was disturbed by Rea again.

"Will we have any break? I'm starving and my feet hurts," she said in pleading tone. I noticed that she was walking slower than before half hour ago but that wasn't time for a break. Then I reminded that she wasn't eating anything by... I didn't remember if she even ate anything after we escaped from the hall.

"We can stop for a while..." she immediately lied on her side and breathed a sigh of relief."...and I can find for you something to eat," I said not too happy that we need to stop so early but I could understand that she need that. I hope that she didn't need to break every six hours.

"Oh, yeah please," she said relaxed but quickly added, "Or no, I will find something by myself."

"Easy, I can bring you fruit, it's not that I can't touch them," I calmed her and she only nodded with her eyes closed. I guessed right, she thought that I would kill someone to feed her, that would be problematic because I didn't see any living creature today and that wasn't surprising. The soil here was hard, so digging a den or any shelter wasn't an option, and to find food for a group bigger than ours was also problematic.

 _Even if I would kill someone, why was that problem for her, she killed to feed me in our first meet._

As leafeon, I hadn't many problems with finding fruits and I quickly sensed where were the closest ones. I had very limited amount of normal to every leafeon and other not calculating jolteon and from few days espeon powers, but thankfully I had some connection with plants as leafeon. I went into that direction leaving Rea on the road. I found the fruits on the short bush in less than five minutes of walking and started gathering them on my leaf-like tail. These ones were currants for sure. When I had a small pile of them I went back to Rea which didn't move from the time when I left. I put the pile before her on the fern's leaf and sat down in the distance waiting for the end of her break.

She quickly ate the whole pile still lying down and she looked quite disappointed that I hadn't more but she didn't ask me to gather more fruits and only commented that I found very sweet berries. I started to doubt my botanical knowledge, I need to remember to not use names of fruits in future, who will believe me that I'm real leafeon if don't see any difference between currant and berry. I lost interest in looking at her and looked at the mountain pass far in the distance, I could see black and gray walls with white snow covering the whole mountain ridge.

After a while, Rea got up and we could continue the journey through the road overgrown by grass and ferns. Rea seemed to be in the much better mood with the filled stomach which made her, to my irritation, more talkative.

"So, you said that was a road but I don't remember any roads here, roads are made by humans and I'm not sure if my grandmother saw the last human on this ground," she said looking and me waiting for the answer. I looked ahead, still long way until we get to my destination, there was no chance to ignore her all this way. I decided that I will try to enjoy some conversation to pass the time and to not hearing later Myron's speech how antisocial I am.

"How many years ago did your grandmother see that human?" I asked, not looking back at her. They left these ground at the same time as the city was destroyed, now their civilization was far to the west from here.

"I didn't say that she saw him but she would be now eighty," she answered me quickly, it was very visible that she want to keep some conversation and that was normal, if before me she was traveling with five friends then there was always some to talk.

 _If her grandmother would be eighty then she needs to be more or less thirty._

"Then I can tell you that she didn't saw him for sure," I said. Maybe I'm giving her too much information but if she is going with me to the place of my past she will learn much more.

"Wait for a second, how can you know that?" she said, a little irritated.

"How old you think I am?" I said calmly.

"Well, you are for sure younger than me, I would say that you started your adulthood few month ago," I only smiled to her guessing but

that is how I look like, from all my abilities being immortal was my favorite, you just need to remember to not grow attached to something that can die.

"I am much older," I said amused.

"I don't believe you," she said seriously after a while.

 _If I would be in her place I probably wouldn't believe myself._

"You don't need to," that was when our conversation broke off and our walk became silent again. It was warm today, to hot for me so I tried to stay in the shadow on the left side of the path but Rea stayed on the opposite side in the rays of the sun. Soon, the large river appeared on our way, in the past, it was a large bridge here but it collapsed and now only pillars were standing out of the water. I jumped into the water without thinking, it wasn't deep, I could stand on all four and my head was still under the water. The flow wasn't too strong so close to the bank. I waited until my genes will react with the water to change my type. In the meantime I looked at Rea, she was still standing at the bank of the river.

 _Ah, she is a fire type so she can't swim._

"How you usually manage to cross rivers lakes or any other big basin of water?" I asked. I didn't have an idea how to transport her and I didn't want to think about an option to let her ride on me.

"By bridge or wading, it's not that I completely need to avoid water but I can't swim," she responded calmly but fact how she was looking at the water told me that she really didn't want to touch this. According to this how heavy she was when I was dragging her and how heavy will became all her fur on the tail and collar-like thing after they get wet, she would sink like a rock.

 _Being only one type sucks, especially this one who don't even have his biome. What are advantages of being flareon? You usually live in a forest so your fire is very dangerous, every river is a nightmare and in the winter everyone will try to touch you._

I saw that Rea looked away from me grimaced.

"Could you warn me when you are doing this? I don't want to see that," she said still looking away.

 _Doing what?_

Then I noticed that my color of my paws changed from yellow-brown to blue which means that I changed my type to water. I remembered that she said that my changing type process looked disgusting, but I guessed she used less offensive words to describe this.

The situation was problematic, how to transport her, she couldn't just fly above the river, or could she? The idea was risky but it was a chance to success.

"Wait here," I said and swam to another bank of the river. Even if the flow was strong in the middle of the river I hadn't any problems and after a short while, I was standing on the opposite bank of the river. Standing on the ground as a vaporeon wasn't comfortable, this tail was too long and too heavy so I dragged it behind me like some kind of heavy bag.

"I will do that again," I shouted to Rea, not forgetting what she told me a minute ago. Waiting for change was much longer than before because I was wet and it was becoming evening so the sun wasn't that warm as before but I finally changed into espeon.

" _What a stupid river why it needs to be so deep here?_ " I heard the voice of Rea in my mind. That wasn't the only one voice which I heard but I try to ignore them, I had some experience into ignoring annoying voices in my head.

 _Uh, what should I do now?_

I never before was using any psychic thing so I didn't know how things worked. I tried to remind myself what other psychic types which I met before did, they were for sure looking at his target so I looked at Rea. I also remember that their taste is much better than every other type especially when they also had the second type, like fire or ice and it was the end of my knowledge. I also guessed that I'm getting hungry. Not sure what I'm doing I tried to imagine that Rea somehow is floating above the water but nothing happened. Rea was just staring at me blankly from opposite side of the river, I needed to look very stupid trying to concentrate lowered to the ground and with my eyes squinted not making any effect. I tried to somehow lift her using telekinesis but she still was standing on the ground.

 _Maybe she is just too heavy? Or my changes gave my only ability to hear annoying voices._

" _Wow, he looks good as an espeon, I could even fal..._ "

"WHAT!?" I screamed surprised but my surprise only grows more when Rea, on which I was focused second ago, was catapulted by an invisible force high in the air, so fast that she started screaming second before she hit the water close to me.

 _Success ...almost._

She quickly exited the river and try to drain herself by shaking, she was treating water on her with abhorrence. I felt that my headache was getting worse so I hide in the shadow trying to ignore every sound.

After I changed my type again to the leafeon I felt exhausted. I can't change my type for fun, every change is draining some energy from me and now I felt like a well-wrung cloth.

"Why, what's that supposed to be?!" screamed Rea angry at me, she was almost dry.

"Eh, psychic practice?" I said realizing how stupid my idea was. What could happen if I send her into another direction?

"Psychic practice!? On me!?" she was even angrier than before.

"Do you have a better idea how to make you cross the river? There isn't any bridge by this river, or none which is not destroyed," I calmed her. How it even worked? When I tried to use these powers nothing happened, I made this only by accident.

After another short break, it was getting late and I was still tired. I knew the place where we could stay for the night. I stood up and started walking alongside the road which on this side of the river was much more visible and couldn't be mistaken with clearing. White lines were wiped off on the dark asphalt but I could remember that it was a motorway, the road sights here were still standing but it wasn't possible to read them.

Next to the road was a medium sized building with many cuboid things under the high roof which was standing on four round pillars close to it. The building had glassy open doors. I led Rea to the building, inside there were many empty stillages arranged in a row and table connected with the wall, that was the place where humans were selling fuel to their metal cages with wheels which they called cars.

"Here is where we sleep tonight," I said to the still grumpy Rea. She found a place to sleep under the table. I decided to go outside for the moment, I exited the building in the sunset.

 _One more change of form today._

" _She said this, she said,_ " screaming excited Myron the leafeon.

"What she said, I don't remember anything," I said to my imagination.

" _She said that you..._ "

"Bla blah blah I don't remember anything," I cut him.

" _She doesn't matter,_ " interposed Lasota the espeon.

"Shut up, I'm not listeni... AAHH!" I let out a short scream when my form changed once again, too much for one day. I decided to sleep where I was so I lied on my side and almost immediately fell asleep.

* * *

I woke up before the sunrise and I went to the building to wake up Rea and simply smacked her forehead with my paw, but she only mumbled something that sounded like 'mmnneoo' and 'gooowayy'. I decided to use a more forceful way to wake her up. I went to the river which was nearby. I took some water in my mouth and quickly ran back. When I was back to Rea I spit the water on her head and effect was immediate, she jumped and because she slept under the table she hit her head in the bottom of the table.

"Ouch, it's still before the sunrise, why you are waking me?" she asked in sleepy voice rubbing her head not even noticed water.

"When we arrive at the city I will let you sleep a whole day but now we need to keep moving," I answered, we were close to the tunnel which will lead us to our or more main destination. Rea exited the building yawing and followed me to along the road.

"So, is the only way?" asked Rea when we arrived at the tunnel entrance.

"We can always try to climb up this mountain but it will take us a month if we even survive, this tunnel isn't that bad it's just dark. And you need to have your eyes closed in the tunnel and don't use any fire," I wasn't sure if closing eyes would be helpful to save her from having visions inside of the tunnel but maybe."And don't react to any voice or touch,"

"What you mean by that, how I will be able to walk with closed eyes, and why no fire?" she asked, still looking at the entrance.

"Just close your eyes and everything will be fine and about your eyes, it will be very dark inside so you won't see anything anyway,"

"What is sense to keep them closed then," she asked again looking puzzled.

 _Just do it!_

"To save you from seeing things in the dark, just keep close to me." I had never investigated what was wrong with this tunnel, I thought that is some kind of gas but it was only a guess.

I entered the tunnel and "Ahh" I felt some pain from my tail. I looked back to see that Rea bit me and was keeping my tail in her muzzle but I get the idea. I started walking ahead and it soon became completely dark.

 _Almost like in distortion world._

The tunnel was almost empty, from time to time I was passing old burned cars without windows and modern houses.

 _What are buildings doing in the tunnel?_

But I wasn't in the tunnel any longer, that was the one-way street in the center of a city. There were few parked cars and motor scooters on the road. On the sidewalk were a crowd of the humans and their pokemon hurrying in different directions.

Then it started storming, a black bolt appeared in the sky and with the wind appeared small green leaves. The leaves were like razors cutting everything on their way, dancing in the gusts of wind. But it seemed that no one on the street noticed it. People were shredding by small leaves, pieces of leather were falling on the ground exposing red muscles which also were quickly cut off the skeleton. Leaves were dancing, going through the bodies, making small whirls, going up and down, there were no longer green: they were in royal crimson color. The street changed to the red river of blood mixed with water of rain but people didn't scream, they were talking with each other, laughing and still going on their way like nothing was happening. Soon they became only skeletons which were moving their jowl in attempts to speak. I looked down, I was under my knees on the river of the blood and in the reflection of the liquid blood I saw a black colored jolteon. He had yellow zigzag lines going along both of his sides. The rest of his body was still changing, his tail for the moment was the long thin leaf but it quickly changed to bushy tail with the single glowing ring but after a second it changed again. But his eyes were all the time the same, the same as mine.

No, I'm still in the tunnel I just need to walk straight ahead. I blinked several times still looking on the ground and focused only on walking. The environment changed again and now it was a clean and white corridor in some building. I was passing doors made from imitation of brown wood.

On each door was a single plate which read '98 Equipment', '99 Toilets', '100 Coatroom'. '121'...here I stopped. These doors were made of steel and was looking like an entrance to a giant safe. I heard regular sound of scratching from the other side of the door: scratch, moment of silence, scratch another second of silence. I moved closer to the doors and sound of scratching get more intense and become long single squeak. 'UO00" was description below the number. I hesitated but finally, I continued my walk straight ahead.

The scenery changed again. Now I was standing on the dark, almost black stripes of amphibolite, the sky was covered by dark clouds or by one giant homogenous cloud. I was on the high hill, before me I saw the great valley. At the left end of the valley was the high mountain with red lines which were like snakes going down along of the mountain side. From the peak of the mountain was smoke in the same color as clouds.

Suddenly a loud noise echoed through the whole valley, the mountain split in two and giant balls of fire shot from the newly made hole dragging behind lines of black fumes. The narrow paths of lava connected with each other changing color of the whole mountain to red. Then I heard a scream, the scream which I thought will never hear again and a pain, the pain in my tail.

 _Wait, what is wrong with my tail?_

I looked behind and saw an orange flareon with my tail in her mouth. The scenery of the valley disappeared and I was at the exit of the tunnel. Before me was large valley but different from this which I saw before. This one was girded by the high mountain ridge under which we were walking through the tunnel. At the center of the valley the ground was going up making the small hill. The ground here was burned, long ago was here forest, now it was only cinder and coal. Every movement was making fumes of the ash. There was a single asphalt road which led around of the center hill.

 _Is it real or is this another hallucination?_

"Rea, you can open your eyes now," but she didn't react. I ordered her to not react to any voice or touch and now it turned against me. I tried to pull out my tail from her grasp but it only became stronger.

 _Oh, come on!_

I decided to wait until she gets tired enough to let me go. It took an hour until she opened her eyes.

"So, it was you who said that," she said. "It was crazy, at first it seems to be like in a city later at a shore of lake and after it, I saw an eruption of the volcano even if I never before saw things like that. It seems to be so real I even felt heat from it, I didn't even need to open my eyes to see that,"

She saw almost everything that I saw, I thought that only I can see it because of it in my memory. What if everyone who tries walk this tunnel will see fragments from my past? How can a tunnel share memories? That was very unpleasant for me.

"And it was you there, at this lake it, was it your memory?" Rea asked silently. I only looked at her and turned into opposite direction.

"We are close, come," I said not showing any emotion. She didn't follow me immediately. After short while we were at the corner of the hill, in the meantime sun appeared in the sky so I changed myself to but I didn't change yet. Before the city appeared from the corner of the hill I stopped. It was so long when I was here last time. My thought started to drift away but then I felt warmth at my side. I looked there and I saw Rea, both her paws were around my neck.

"What are you doing?" I asked unsurely.

"Um, I'm hugging you," that wasn't a question but sound like that.

"For what?" I could only imagine how bad it must have felt as glaceon, all this warmth.

"I saw what happened to you at this lake and I thought that you need it," she said letting me go. That meant that she didn't see exactly the same things but she mentioned them, what if she saw the full scene what happened at the lake? I felt my heart sink.

"I think that I can find you a place in my pack, if I remember correctly I even promised that in our first encounter." Rea said.

A new feeling filled me, I felt warm but not because Rea was warming all the air around her, it was internal warmth. I quickly calmed myself. I couldn't let my emotions took control on me, I couldn't follow this impulse. But it was always an option after I will deal with my hunter.

"I will remember about that," I said. "But I have few things which I need to do first,"

"So, what did you give to Gloim as a payment?" I asked after a while of silence, I was curious what could be vulnerable for him. I wasn't planning any revenge, just curiosity.

"He is the hunter who is looking for a challenge for him, he already beat most of the strongest pokemon in the area, but he still wants to find stronger and stronger opponents so I gave him information where he can find them," she said. "I thought that he killed you. How it's even possible that you are still alive? I saw you completely burned."

I showed her one of my claws of my right paw and quickly made a small cut on my left one. When she saw that, she grimaced but was still looking. Almost immediately smoke appeared and covered my new made wound. After the second smoke faded away and there was no sign of my cut.

"That, does that work on every kind of injury?" she asked surprised.

"Yes, even if someone cut me in half it will heal me. I mean, I will be temporary dead then but after a year or so I should be fine," I was always wondering if someone cut my head off then rest of my body will make a new head or my head will create whole new body but I didn't want to try it. Rea was looking at me astonished.

"And I thought that type changing is crazy," she said slowly.


	3. Chapter 3 'City'

We were at the entrance to the outskirts of the giant city. A street which was in the past a broad and modern expressway was now run-down and dirty. The street headed to the city. I remember this city, it was big modern and captivating city with large parks and tall buildings made of glass, the every night was lighted by colourful neons.

Now only ruins were here. From the cracked ground were long sharp metal girders of old structures with a coat of rust and dregs of paint. On them were hanging down old mixed cables. Fragments of glass were like a carpet with spikes covering almost the whole ground. Burned derelicts and old streamlined cars were disarranged on streets, which were cracked and full of holes.

I thought that all information about me was destroyed with that city but if someone was trying to get me than he needed to find something here.

" _Rea can be trouble, what if our old prison isn't empty and we will meet some 'friends', she should wait on outskirts,_ " advised Kilian, the umbreon.

"Listen, Rea, you shouldn't go with me now, you will only slow me down, wait here on the edge of the outskirts." I agreed with the umbreon spirit in me.

"No way, I'm going with you," she said confidently and stood even closer to me.

"You really should stay here," I argued, I looked at her and something blinked blue in her eye, I never before was paying attention to her eyes but I thought that they were a much darker colour earlier then I saw it now.

"You promised to escort me, you can't keep me safe if I stay here," I hadn't wanted to agree to that but I hadn't any excuses which could be helpful now. I sighed. _Damn me why I feel that keeping my promises is so important._

"If you must, then come," I said turning to the city. But there was one more problem for me. Even if there were parks, now they were burned, because of that the only ground in the city were asphalt, brick or ashes. I couldn't keep my night form during the day. Other forms also wouldn't work because of missing elements which left only eevee and espeon form to use, until nightfall.

I didn't want to waste a whole day and because the city could be dangerous I decided to use espeon once more. After Rea looked away I changed. Voices immediately echoed in my mind but it seems to be less of them than before, maybe I started to get used to it. I also noticed that I could identify the place from where these voices were coming from. Almost all of them were from very far but one was coming from the nearby. I tried to listen to it.

" _Wait, follow, bored, angry, open,_ " This was completely different than Rea's mind voice. Rea always was creating a normal sentence which I wasn't sure if she really said it or it was just a thought, this one was like a whisper and words were spoken slowly.

 _Maybe it was some echo of some mind, but an echo of thought even exist?_

Walking through the street wasn't easy, it was cracked glass everywhere and I didn't want to get cut. I could heal very quickly but it would be still some unnecessary pain. When we got closer to the ruined city centre, on the streets appeared white bare bones in every size and shape. We came to the central plaza of the city, here were, even more, shards of glass, covering the whole ground. I didn't know this city well enough to find another way to my target without losing ourselves in the labyrinth of streets.

" _Nice, he lost us_ ," I heard Rea after few minutes of thinking if should I try to use some psychic to move troublesome glass or look for another way would be safer.

"I'm not lost, not yet," I answered, that was the first time when I heard her grumbling.

"But I didn't say anything," said Rea looking surprised but quickly her facial expression become similar to this one which she had after she landed in the river. "Stop using your psychic things one me! There are my thoughts!"

"It's not my fault that you stream them like a radio," I answered and finally decided that using telekinesis couldn't hurt, even if I failed.

" _Really am I? Terid never mentioned that. What if he knows everything that I'm thinking about him?! Maybe that's why he is so nice toward me._ "

"Stop talking! I mean thinking so loud, who is this Terid anyway?" I didn't care much who he is, but if I heard his name then why shouldn't know to whom it belong.

"He is an espeon from my pack, that is weird when someone knows what you are thinking. Could you try to ignore it? It's my private zone," answered Rea, a little grumpy. No matter if I could or not I needed to ignore them to give my "clear the place" mission any chance to success. I felt different than before when I was trying to concentrate on glass. It felt almost like touching them but being far from them at the same time. After a long while, few smaller shards started to fly but only for few second. There were so small but I felt like they weighed a tonne.

 _Am I that weak with that or am I missing something important?_

"Is anything wrong? I tried to be quiet now," said Rea when she saw my failure.

"It wasn't because of you, I'm just not the best at this. Only one thing which I was able to move by psychic was you and I made that only by accident. You could say that I'm a beginner in using psychic powers," I said. Why did I even try to justify it to her, she is fire-type not able to help me with that. She probably knows even less than me.

" _No, now he is saying that he is beginner into using psychic powers, I'm lucky that I'm still alive and that he didn't fry my brain_ ,"

"That wasn't necessary to mention," I said.

"Maybe I will be able to solve our problem," she said, ignoring fact that I heard her insult, and walked in front of me. She let from her muzzle large stream of fire on the glass carpet and kept doing that for some time. When she stopped I noticed that pieces of glass melted with each other creating bigger one losing its sharpness. She repeated this several times making the path of melted glass.

"It's too hot for you to stand on this yet," she warned me and she was right, she needed to create heat of over thousand degrees to melt it. But it was fine for her and she laid on the newly made path of glass, enjoying the warmth.

Finally, she let me know that it was safe to step on glass and we were able to cross the place. On the other side of the place, I turned right, into the smaller one-way street. The street was long and had parking spaces next to the narrow road. At the end of the street was large and high building, this one was much more destroyed than the others buildings were.

"This street looks like this one which I saw in the tunnel, I mean in my dream while we were in the tunnel," said Rea looking around.

"What happened here? I mean in your dream," I asked. It was more like mine dream but I wanted to know what she saw.

"I was standing here," she said moving to the centre of the route, the same place which I was in my dream and turning to the direction which we came from."There were crowds of people and then I blinked and the street became completely empty." That means that she saw some other version of the same thing, maybe less horrible version.

We continued going along the road still avoiding the now rarely sharp pieces of glass.

After few minutes we stood before the entry to the building. The building had many holes in the wall and some part of walls were completely missing giving a view of the interior of the building. Paint faded completely from the building making red, bare bricks visible. There was no sight of a door, just another empty hole.

I entered the building. Inside was dirty and everything was covered in thick dust, I stopped for a moment and strain hearing trying to catch some sound which could warn me about some danger but the only one thing what I could hear was dripping of the water. I moved to the steps, climbing up the stairs, with Rea close behind me. There was some missing part of the stairs so we needed to make few risky jumps. We arrived at the sixth floor, here was one single corridor with many entrances on both of the sides. I walked inside of the room and started calculating empty space where many years ago doors were. '96' , '97' , '98' , '98' ... '121'. Steel doors were lying on the opposite side of the corridor and were full of small cut and cracks. I entered the room, inside was, even more, cracks on the floor and walls, only the ceiling, ignoring structural cracks, was free from cuts.

The room wasn't large, there were three chairs, one long table, and cage with a large hole in one on the left side. It looked like that something bit this hole from inside. I started looking for any track of mysterious hunter who, if I was thinking correctly, had to be here earlier. I quickly found very visible prints in the dust on the ground. I wasn't able to recognise to whom this print belong, that was for sure some pokemon, his footprint was bigger than would be a print of my whole body but most important was a scent.

I stayed for a moment with my nose close to it until I was sure that I will remember this scent. I needed to admit that nose of espeon is extremely bad, that made me feel blind in some way but I couldn't change into umbreon for a better sense of scent in the middle of the day. I moved to look for any other signs. The scent was important but maybe I will find something more helpful.

"I will wait outside," said Rea, exiting the room. I noticed that because of her company I didn't hear other parts of me that often like I was hearing them usually. I remember that Myron was advising me to have company.

 _Maybe he was right?_

But if I did something that my imagination was telling me then maybe I was even crazier than before? Maybe I got from hearing other sides of me to seeing them as a real sentient being? No, Rea had to be real, the glass couldn't be melted just by my imagination. I need to trust my own eyes. If I wouldn't be doing that then I could develop a sense of paranoia like thinking that I'm still in distortion world and Giratina is just making me another test, wanting to observe how I will behave out of her reach. That couldn't be true, right?

Maybe it was a good time to take a break from my espeon form, I was overthinking things and ceaseless buzz of voices in my head wasn't helping. When I was about to exit the room I saw some yellow thing inside of the damaged cage.

When I got closer it saw the orange dragon scale, he needed to lose it when he touched the sharp tear in the metal cage. It was some small spill of blood, I wanted to lick it to taste it but because of the tear in the metal cage, I decided not to. When I was exiting the room I stopped one more time, this time in front of the lying metal door. I looked at the scratches, I stepped closer to it and I revealed my claws. I put my paw on one of the cracks, my claws fit perfectly to few centimetres deep scratches.

I was locked here, long ago when this city was a heart of human civilisation. In these days I was scratching this door completely brainless trying to get out. Humans were ill, testing on me with their chemicals they tried to learn as much about me as they could. One day they gave me something that allowed me to use all my forms at the same time but they didn't know about the evil side of me, the side which wanted only bloodshed, death and suffering.

They were blind to my suffering of being locked so I stayed blind to their suffering when they were killed. From the great city, no one survived and part of their technology was forgotten. Today's humans weren't the same, they are using what was left of that technology but aren't able to create the same weapons, machines or vehicles like before. The whole of civilisation on its knees to every legendary pokemon, that was perfect for Giratina, almost if she planned it.

Maybe it was bad what I have done but I felt great with that. I wasn't telling myself that it wasn't me, that only my jolteon part of me done all of that. It was me and I liked it. I took my paw off the door and I went to the exit. But then again I heard _"Wait, follow, bored, angry, come, open"_ this time it was much closer, it was from another room. I went by stairs on the second floor. This floor has very similar to earlier visited corridor. I once again was passing multiple rooms but this time I was listening to the mysterious voice. " _Come, open, free, rage_ ". I entered one of the rooms where I thought the voice was coming from.

The room was round, walls were painted on blue colour but not much of paint stayed on the wall. On the wall was the large and prim mirror, it looked like someone cleaned it seconds ago and completely wasn't suited to the rest of the scenery of the ruined city. Then before me, the mirror become black and...deep? Or it was some funny 3D effect or I really saw deepness of the mirror, and something was...moving in there? I move closer to check it but almost immediately jumped back when from mirror leapt out a canine creature. I barely avoided its fangs.

The mirror cracked and spilled into million small pieces but the creature, giant cream and orange with black stripes arcanine was now standing before me. No that wasn't possible, that was Giratina delusion but how he got here, how portal to distortion world could just appear? I wanted to continue my contemplation but arcanine had a different plan for me. He lunged at me covering himself in flames but this time I was prepared and dodged it easily.

When he was passing me I bit his neck but almost immediately let go when his flames burned my delicate espeon skin. I hissed at him when he turned to me, my smoke covered my muzzle trying to heal my wounds but also was disturbing my vision. I noticed that I didn't do any visible harm to him. He didn't attack the second time, he was staring at me in the battle pose. Then he spun around and run away through the wall destroying it. It seems that he didn't even notice this wall and any next which he hit going only faster and faster until dust covered him completely.

 _What was that?_

That was Giratina delusion, so he should disappear. But delusion which had thought? Which could live out of the distortion world? I knew that Giratina is a god but never was thinking how powerful she really can be. I exited the building little shaky, I still wasn't sure what I saw a second ago: did it really happen?

My muzzle healed not leaving any sight of a burn.

Rea was standing before of the building waiting patiently.

"So, where to next?" she asked with enthusiasm when I exited the building.

"To your pack, I think, I'm done here," I said turning to the opposite direction from which we came from. There was a mountain pass which we could use as a shortcut.

It had become cloudy and the sun disappeared from view. I had hoped to learn more in this city about that 'someone', but what I found was better than nothing. Now my hunter will become my prey. In the same moment, I lost my espeon form and became eevee because I was still standing on asphalt and hadn't a connection to any useful element for me. My genes lost all energy of the sun and chose the form which didn't need any special environment. I felt relief when my mind became silent but that wasn't a good moment for this form. I looked around to find anything which could be helpful for me to change but there was nothing.

"Why did you change into that?" asked Rea, looking at me puzzled.

"That wasn't planned, I just lost connection," I answered, now I needed to look up in order to not speak at her legs.

"Um, connection?" she asked even more puzzled.

"Yeah, connection, I need to have contact with each element to keep some type, without it, I'm like that," I answered and continue walking into mountain pass direction.

"So, can you still evolve?" she asked walking side by side with me. Can I? Probably no, gaining the ability to changing my type replaced evolution.

"No, I don't think that I can," I answered after a while of thinking.

"But if you could which one would you chose?" Which one would I choose? Perfect for me would be some mix of leafeon (because I feel good in that form), umbreon (for its senses) and espeon (if I finally learn psychic). But if I had to choose one of them I wasn't sure, every of this forms has its advantages and disadvantages.

"I think that if I were a normal eevee before his evolution I wouldn't be thinking about that, I would just try to enjoy my life as some of them. But I would much rather enjoy life as a jolteon than a vaporeon because I'm not a fan of swimming...but maybe I would get used to it," I answered her, I wasn't sure about what she was thinking but she didn't say anything more.

After an hour of walking, the city disappeared from the view and we were closer to the mountain pass. The terrain here was very flat and burnt, I suddenly felt very naked without anything which could hide me from a view of a potential observer, there was nowhere to hide. I shivered at the thought that even the laziest eye could see me right now without any effort, my only camouflage was my brown colour to the much darker brown ground.

 _Did I really feel fearful?_

I wasn't thinking about it earlier but while I was in eevee form my life seems to be much more important than being in another form. Maybe I felt like that because of my now much smaller size. Luckily we arrived at the entrance to the mountain pass.

The weather didn't change but there was some snow here in which I dove in, and after a minute I was glaceon. The feeling of coldness from snow immediately disappeared and it felt even warm. This time Rea didn't comment anything, it seems that she got used to seeing my 'difference'. Instead of her commenting I heard a rumble in her belly. I was hungry too.

"I will go ahead to find something to eat," I said. "You just follow this path... "-I pointed my paw to the opposite end of the pass-"...it is impossible to lose your way, and I will be nearby."

"Okay," she only said. Maybe she was too hungry to discuss? I ran ahead searching for a track. Reminders of the hunger made me even more excited to hunt. I loved it: the feeling when I was tracking my unexpecting prey, staying silent until the last moment, and then satisfaction during rest after a successful hunt.

Then I noticed the entrance to the cave. If there is a cave then maybe there is also some lodger. The cave was only a little bigger than my own on my mountain. I quickly noticed that at the entrance was a big spiral and white web. I knew what to do, I jumped on the web and immediately adhered to it, hanging one meter above the ground. I waited some time facing the entrance, but nothing happened. I started shaking to make the web vibrate but not too much, I didn't want to free myself yet.

Then I saw a spider-like creature deep in the tunnel. He probably thought that I didn't see him because of darkness which was inside of the cave. Acting like I wouldn't expect anything I shook a little more.

"Oh no I got kidnapped in the spider web, what will I do?~" My acting was that bad and emotionless that I felt even shame that I tried. I sounded more like I was trying not to fall asleep than being afraid of my life.

But ariados seems to not be an acting critic and started getting closer. When he was close enough I looked into his eyes, I saw a glimmer of the light reflected in his pupils. small dots in my eye started to shine bright blue.

He immediately froze in place with his jaw prepared to bite. When I saw that my ability worked well I spined fast in the web breaking it. Some web still was glued to me but I could move again and I started to going backwards to the exit of the cave. The arachnid followed me. Outside I chose a direction to the path when Rea soon or later would be going but not losing eye contact with my potential new dinner. I went in one direction but I didn't even manage to get to the path when my ariados lay on his stomach: he probably froze to death.

"Hey what you think you are doing, I'm not done yet with you, where is my fun?" I said to the lying body disappointed that the best part of hunting escaped me.

I didn't feel coldness but I guess that it had to be very cold. Ariados probably was waiting in his cave for summer, when he could spread his web across the whole mountain pass. To be sure that he was dead I bit off his head, that won't be useful anymore. Dragging him by the soft snow wasn't that hard, he mostly slipped through that and I quickly returned to the path. Here I saw prints in the snow which means that Rea already was here.

After I dragged my prey following the path of Rea's prints I found her at the end of the mountain pass were snowy ground become grass again. She was lying sleeping. I sniffed around, her scent wasn't strong, that meant she arrived here not that long ago.

I promised her sleep when we (or mainly I) finished my investigation in the city, so I didn't try to wake her up. I looked at the lying ariados. Normally I would just eat him not wasting time but now I needed to wait for Rea so I decided to prepare our dinner as smaller, more comfortable and safer to eat pieces.

In the end, I saw that there wasn't that much of meat as I thought it would be. I sat down on the heap of snow, I thought that I would have just an enjoyable rest, free from every voice in my head.

But Rea started snoring and when I thought that I couldn't stand it anymore she started snoring even louder, a fully opened mouth, going through the full octave of "hr" sounds. I couldn't ignore this so I went to the forest, changing to leafeon while I was walking. I quickly found a good spot on the maple tree branch and got comfy on it. From here I could see Rea but I was too far to hear her, I saw that she rolled on another side on which she was lying. It won't be long when we arrived at her pack. After that, I would be again alone on my journey: to find the person who tried to hunt me.

I didn't know Rea's pack very well, only that they arrived here very long ago probably before I was even born or Giratina was caged in the distortion world. In the past, it was a very small pack, usually less than thirty adults. Living close to the human city, their number was often reduced because one of them was from time to time caught by humans. How easy was for the humans to separate pokemon from their family always astonished me; me whose conscience wasn't very clear. They just wanted to have some creature to battle with and then take with them as their friend for the rest of their life. Forcing to be like a puppet, obey commands and battle other puppet pokemon.

I heard that return to freedom was very rare. But much worse were pokemon raised by humans simply because they didn't know other life and thought about it as 'normal' to be subservient to humans. It reminded me of me and Giratina.

With time, Rea's pack found a place where they were hidden from people and number caught shrunk. But their population really increased after the city was destroyed or, to be more accurate, after I destroyed it. Even if I remember only a few moments from doing that. I could only guess how many eevees and eeveelutions were in that pack right now, they had a whole forest to themselves and lived in isolation to the rest of the world, only rarely some of them decided to see more than their forest world, and like Rea did go through the world, so their population could be something like two or three hundred.

Back to my problems, I hope that there wasn't any legendary pokemon who was hunting me. Fighting that would be a big problem: I'm not even sure if they are possible to kill. Most of pokemon didn't believe in that they really exist or thought about them as something mystic and out of reach. I, obviously, knew that they are true beings. I saw, not counting Giratina, one of them which I think is a very good score. But this one time proved to me that they are far from that what can be expected from legendary. I saw Moltres who brought on the eruption of volcano destroying valley in which I lived back then. It was wonderful days of my life in that valley, but ended so unexpectedly.

"Sinar!" Rea's voice broke my thought "Where are you?!"

I looked at the place where she was earlier and I saw that she was walking to my direction looking around searching for me. She was probably following the trail of my scent.

"I'm here," I said. from the tree branch when she got closer. She stopped and looked around. "Look up."

"What you are doing there?" she asked and look up but still wasn't looking straight at me. I guess that my colour and leaf-like parts of my body were making me invisible in the thick foliage of the tree. I got down on the ground and stood at her right.

"I was resting," I answered, stretching until something pleasantly cracked in my back.

"I didn't know that you need rest, I never saw you sleeping before. But why were you resting on the tree? I've never seen someone from our kind resting on a tree," she said supplementing my missing knowledge which I actually never gain about eeveelutions behaviour. I learned to sleep on the few trees while I was in the Distortion World and later when I was in the normal world this habit only got stronger until I found my home in a cave.

"I guess that we should keep going, we are not that far from your pack now," I said choosing the right way to our destination.

"So, you will just go in your way after we arrive at that?" asked Rea following me behind.

"That was the deal, I'm escorting you to your pack, you don't have three questions which I firstly promised and you forgetting that you even met me," I said not even turning my head to her.

"Forgetting? You didn't say anything like that before," she said confidently.

"It would be easier for you to forget me, soon I will hunt down this someone who tried to capture me, imagine that: you are returning to your pack saying things about a form changing eevee and after few days someone on the world disappearing because of some mysterious form changing eevee. Isn't that little obviously that someone can suspect that you know more about that eevee if you talked about him before things happened? Stay silent and your life will be easier," I told her and she remained silent. Soon we arrived at the stream of water and followed the bank of it, it would lead us straight to the pack.

After half hour of walking, I stopped. Before me was large green clearing and on the opposite end, clearing started becoming covered in large stones which were very close to each other creating small tunnels.

"We are here," I said looking at stones, there was no one here but why I even expected some guards? There is no one who would be able to disturb peace in so large pack.

"Yes we are," said Rea, "I guess it is goodbye," I thought that she would be happy that she was finally home but she acted weird. She acted like being sad and happy at the same time. She had a weak smile on her face but her ears and tail were down.

"What's wrong, isn't that your pack?" I asked when she was still with me at the edge of the clearing.

"Yes it is but I, I just thought, it was, I mean can..."

"No," I interrupted her when I guessed what she wanted to say, "I said it earlier, I have things to do." I looked at her and again saw that her eyes shine in weak blue colour. I blinked but it still was there. I started to feel ...confused, the world started to undulate and spinning in my eyes. Then suddenly it stopped, Rea looked at the opposite end of the clearing, blue glow disappeared.

 _Weird, maybe should I use some sleep, I hadn't good sleep since I was kidnapped._

Seeing that Rea still didn't move I decided that first move in up to me.

"So, take care," I said turning back and going back to the deepness of forests.

"Goodbye, remember that you can always find some place here," screamed Rea behind me while the forest was overwhelming me.

* * *

I was completely brainless going along the invisible path before me, going around trees, and occasionally rocks and hills which I was too lazy to climb over. My fur was tousled by the strong cold north wind, my leaf-like ears and tail undulating in the breeze. The sight of the mountain, which was still visible when I left Rea, disappeared long ago. I was lost, but that didn't bother me. I was lost almost my whole life wandering through the world aimlessly, condemned to immortality and only from time to time did I find some goal.

So I didn't feel that I needed to back to my mountain right now so I would arrive it in next two days or just go with the wind direction and arrive my cave in next thousand years. I always felt like this when I completed a task, losing purpose to do anything and waiting until something happens. But that was hopeless waiting, I knew that nothing would just come to me, that if I wanted something I needed to reach for it. But what did I want? Had I any purpose to live?

I was telling myself that vengeance on Giratina is that purpose but I wasn't and never will be able to kill her. She was isolated in the Distortion World, what is a sense of isolating something if that thing was just impossible to annihilate. And when someone was powerful enough to build the barrier between the worlds but couldn't kill Giratina, what were my chances to do something that he couldn't?

I didn't even notice that I was almost crawling until I tripped over some tree root and fell on my stomach.

* * *

I woke up, I had mouth and eyes full of sand so I rubbed my eyes with the paw. When I cleared my vision I looked around. I was lying in the middle of a narrow canyon.

 _How I even was able to fall asleep like that?_

I saw behind me a root, the same root which made me fall to the ground which ended with very pleasant sleep and stopped my train of dark thoughts, that was the good root. I stood up and went into the same way which I was heading yesterday.

"Today the weather will be mostly sunny with some passing rain in the evening, the sky will be clear and the wind will blow mostly from the north. And because it's spring. The days are getting longer," I said to the ground before me, using my leafeon talents to forecast the weather.

I noticed dew on my leaf-like parts of the body so I stopped and I satisfied my thirst with dew which required from me some gymnastics because being leaves, the ones on my body were still waving in the sporadic breezes. Then I decided that I really should find where I exactly am. I chose one of the nearby trees which looked taller than others and started climbing. When I got on the highest tree branch which could manage my weight I looked around.

On the left, I saw large basin of water, probably sea or very large lake, definitely not the way which I wanted to go. Other directions were similar: the forest, the forest of green and some which weren't overgrown in leaves trees to the horizon. I scolded myself for how stupid I was yesterday, allowing myself to be lost thinking that there was no difference between few days and thousand years. I guess I had to be really tired. I got down from the tree and chose only one rightful way to go, to the forest.

" _So, nice weather we have today,_ " I heard a cheerful voice in my head.

"How good to hear you loud and clear again Myron," I said to the leafeon in me.

" _I'm glad that you are in good mood today but don't you think that you screwed something up?_ " said Myron, changing his cheerful tone to more serious.

"I slept with my mouth full of dirt and you didn't even come to speak to me in my dreams, is that what is bothering you?" I asked joking.

" _NO! You had a chance to live in the group and you decline it saying that you have something to do!_ " screamed Myron. I expected that he tell something like that.

"Meh," I answered simply.

" _Meh!? What you mean by 'Meh'? I'm part of you, and I know that you wanted to go with her,_ " said Myron, still angry.

"Yeah you are part of me and you should know that we... I mean I...have a purpose to stay alone, especially when we are hunted. And I have not declined I just set it aside for later," I said.

" _But it is just stupid,_ " argued Myron. " _If you joined Rea it would be safer in the pack._ "

" _Leave it, Myron,_ " Lasota the espeon cut him off. " _You always tried to put us into some relationship with almost everyone we've met._ "

"Sometimes I am wondering if only me have voices in the head or everyone has some other sides of personality," I said more to the air than to the small pack in my head.

" _I would suggest you stop wandering and maybe practice your psychic powers, you are really bad at this,_ " said Kilian the umbreon and he had a right, what he said was accurate. No one was around, the day was sunny and I was lost anyway. I stayed in the rays of the sun for a while and changed to the psychic-type. But this time I sat down and tried to listen to the stranger's voices. It came to be that listening wasn't easier than ignoring. It was like a choir where everyone was saying something different and I could hear clearly each of them but it was hard to focus on just one. Someone was saying something about cold food, others commented some bushes, others were mating.

"Uhhh..." I grimaced at the sounds of the last one, which weren't even words. I closed my eyes and tried to find just one voice on which I could focus. I waited long but finally.

"Hello, what you are doing?"

This one was clear, kind, pleasant and even seems to be familiar. I tried to listen to it some more.

"Um, you are okay?" asked again the same voice.

Maybe I wasn't that bad into doing that, now I heard it like if a person who is speaking was ar front of me.

Then I smelt a new odour of smoke which usually accompanied fire-types. I opened my eyes.

 _Oh, fuck._


	4. Chapter 4 'Meeting'

Sinar's past [1/2]

 **(many) Years ago ( before Chapter 1 )**

* * *

It was night, I was on the steep side of the hill in the middle of a snowstorm, snow around me was lit up in red by serenely flowing narrow streams of lava. The only sound here were my footsteps in the ankle deep snow, the whizz of the wind and snowflakes falling to the hot red streams. Even as a glaceon this weather wasn't comfortable for me, the heat emitted by the lava was making me feel fatigued and weak, I felt as if it was trying to melt me even if as ice-type I wasn't made of ice.

I was trying to keep my distance from them but that wasn't possible all the time. I was heading to the east, or I thought I was, I couldn't see through the flying snow around me. My path was blocked by one of the hot streams, I sped up and jumped across it. For a second I thought that I was burned because of heat close to the stream but I landed safely and laid in the snow in the attempt to cool down the temperature of my body.

 _Fire, such a useless and annoying thing._

When I felt better I got up, I felt that snowflakes become bigger hitting me from the left. I needed to hide or I would be buried under the snow. Intense snowfall extinguished the lava's heat and made it darker and more consistent, better for me but I quickly found myself stuck in the deep snow with only my head above. It was far above zero so snow wasn't sticky and I could plow onward but I didn't see where I was going.

I had been keeping my mouth open to breathe, but now I needed to close it so that I didn't eat the snow. Then I stepped on something hot, probably frozen stream of lava. I jumped backwards in pain but I slipped on my back-legs by the white ground and I toppled to the side. I felt that I was slipping down of the mountain side, I turned my stomach to the cliff and revealed my claws in the attempt to stop myself.

But claws, very useful in gripping ice, were useless in loose snow and I only dangerously sped up going down. There was nothing stable to catch. Then I lost ground under me and now I was quickly falling down with the cloud of snow around me. I hit something hard and bumped from it only to hit another thing again and again until I met, even if snow cushioned some of my speed, hard but stable ground dipping in the snow again. When I was sure that for now, I was safe, I tried to stand up but my body answered with pain, which didn't allow me to move.

 _Maybe it's not that bad being under the pile of snow._

Anyway, I didn't even feel the coldness so I could think about it as a blanket for a while. Through the thick snow surface, I could hear rhythmic pitapat of the blizzard.

 _What is wrong with the weather?_

First, an inactive volcano decided to explode, covering the sky in black fumes and destroying the valley from which I was running. And now it was snowing more intense than in last winter even though it was late summer.

Time seemed to go unnaturally slow while I rested my head on my fore-paws covered in snow. But I needed to wait for the pain to fade away so I waited.

I tried to move again, I still felt some pain but that wasn't that bad, I started to dig up myself from the snow. Soon I was standing next to the hole in which I was second ago. I couldn't see the stars but it stopped snowing. I looked around, I was at the foot of the mountain, everything was covered in white but judging from the shape of terrain I was on the opposite side of the mountain that I planned to be.

I saw that the side of the hill was too steep to climb, I needed to go around. Remembering that there was a way through the mountain on the south which I could use as a shortcut, I decided to go in that direction.

Walking in fresh snow wasn't an easy thing, I was sinking in it. Halfway along the shortcut, I found a frozen river which flowed down the mountain and towards the valley. Walking on the ice only slightly covered by snow was much easier. Standing on the river I felt a weak vibration, that meant that under the ice, the river was still flowing. Going in the opposite to river's flow direction I started going around the mountain.

* * *

The shortcut was a narrow gully with high walls of snow and ice upon both sides. I didn't like how it looked, it seemed that no one was around. But ice type pokemon are usually very good at hiding in the snow because some of them just looked like part of an environment, and were known for a very cold temperament.

But I didn't come here to run away at the sight of the path. I made a few steps forward and entered the canyon, stopping for a while to carefully listen to my surroundings.

But nothing happened so, now more confident, I walked along the path. Soon walls and ground became smooth and clear ice in which I could see my reflection. I noticed that I had some marks in a darker blue than the rest of my body, these were my places where my ability was still working trying to heal my bruises from my fall, but the rest of my appearance was as normal as glaceon could be. Only my eyes were a little different from typical dark blue colour but that wasn't that noticeable

Then I noticed that the part of the wall was made of much less glassy ice and had three deep cracks next to each other. I got closer to get a better look. It was cold, like ice, but crack had something dark inside. I noticed something weird on the wall next to the crack.

The wall seemed to open its eyes and was staring at me and I was staring at them. I blinked and blinked again but I still could see the pair of big yellow eyes on the wall.

 _What the f..._

I didn't end my thought when wall exhaled a strange, deep and long sound and started to stand up, shaking the ground and breaking ice close to it. I retreated a few steps back, no longer sure what I was looking at.

The wall rose and fell to the side but rose again and this time on four cylindrical legs, now I could see triangle head with the same yellow eyes on which I saw on the wall. The creature was in shape of unsculpted ice-cube and was so damn huge. I felt that I'm losing my ground with every its step.

Then I remind how I heard about living giant ice stones which lived in cold places and mountains, namely: avalugg. Was it possible that I found something that rare?

"Who is there?!" its voice was harsh, sinister but resounding, like if he was talking from underground. From its voice, I could judge that creature wasn't very enlightened. It seemed that his brain froze because of all this ice around. "Show yourself!"

I wasn't sure what should I do, I was standing before it, astonished by its size. If I start to run and it decides to chase me, we could bring earthquake. But could something like that run?

"Oh! Here you are!" screamed the avalugg when he finally looked down, straight at me. "What are you doing here, snowflake!?" the mountain of ice screamed at me and because of his breath, I took one more step back.

"Um, I passing through... here," I made move with my paw as path was leading before avalugg destroyed part of this when he tried to stand up "Ice-cube," I added, I wasn't sure if it was some avalugg's slang to name a stranger by something connected to the cold and not even care.

I didn't want to make him upset just because of my bad behaviour. But I immediately didn't like him when I heard the name: snowflake. Which glaceon would have a name like that? It also so connected to the type which seemed to be weird to have a name connected to type.

" _Then why you named me Snowid_?" asked the glaceon part of me.

"Shhh, you know that don't mean 'snow'." I hissed.

"To who you are talking!?" screamed the avalugg noticing my short conversation with myself.

"To no one, I just..."

"Liar! I heard! How many of you are here!?" It was becoming dangerous for me, what could I do versus walking ice.

"No! It's only me, me and no more." I tried to calm him.

"Only you and you?" said avalugg not that sure anymore but quickly added "Haa! That means that there is two of you! Where is the second one!?" Screamed the avalugg again stepping one step forward making me sat down but I quickly stood up.

I mentally face-pawed when I heard his unlogical train of thought. I couldn't just ask Snowid to leave me for a second and stood next to me.

" _Psst, I'm not real,_ " Snowid reminds me.

"Shut up, I know that." But honestly, I forgot about it again.

"No one of you will pass through here!" said avalugg making another step forward, I made five backwards to keep distance. "And because you have lied no one will leave!" Now it was really dangerous for me, the avalugg was making step after step, visibly speeding up, and I was making steps backwards until I couldn't make it any faster and I turned to run.

"Come back here! Fight!" screamed the monster behind me. Why didn't anyone say to me that this thing can move so quickly? He was looking as if he was just walking but his one step was like ten mines so he easily kept behind me, shakes of the ground made it hard to keep balance and also making new cracks in the ice.

 _Beautiful day, firstly at morning Moltres, hit like a meteor in volcano making it eruption and now I was chasing by giant incredible stupid ice-cube. Could it get any worse?_

I saw the entrance which I earlier used but it wasn't one. At the entrance was a second avalugg, facing opposite to my direction. I looked behind, the first avalugg was still chasing me and was closer and closer with every second. I didn't want to become wet blob so I decided to risk and I hid claws which were the only thing which was keeping me from sliding. I immediately lay flat on my stomach and hid under the legs of the second avalugg. Lying I saw the two colossi collide with each other falling to the ground shaking it.

"Bab!" screamed standing up this one who was chasing me, "You blocked my path!"

"Noo!" answered him, this one named Bab. "You ran into my standing place!" Also standing up and facing nameless avalugg.

"I was chasing a pack of eeveelutions and you helped them escape!" said angrily avalugg named by me 'ice-cube', and used small blizzard on Bab's face.

"You couldn't chase them because no one entered here, I'm guarding the entrance," answered with stronger blizzard Bab.

No wasting any more time or wondering how I didn't notice Bab at first place I snuck around them and ran through the path which was now full of holes made by heavy legs of avalugg.

While I was running I heard loud thuds and cracks, the avaluggs probably went into a riot. That should give me some time to pass their territory. When I was passing the place where the wall stopped be a wall, I noticed that now it was the entrance to a large icy clearing where were running or lying small round creature also made of ice. I didn't stop to look more carefully but then ice under me cracked open and I only let a sigh when I started falling down second time today.

 _How unlucky am I today?_

Luckily it wasn't that high like earlier, unluckily I landed straight on my face. "MMM!" I quashed scream of pain in my mouth and grit my teeth, I was in a cave made of ice, a loud noise could make it collapse. I rubbed my nose which started to be covered by dark fumes.

 _What would I do without this ability?_

"You would have _probably died long ago,_ " answered me Kilian the umbreon.

"Probably," I agreed, looking around the irregular floor and curved walls, which met at the ceiling to become a roof full of sharp spikes, everything made from rock solid ice. Well, if here could live creatures made of ice then it should be very cold. In the form of glaceon it was hard to say how cold it actually was. It was just 'fine' until it was below zero.

I knew that glaceons could live in hottest temperature but I didn't know how they feel because then I was losing this form.

I noticed four exits from the cave.

 _Great, this is some fucking labyrinth!_

Every exit looked similar: a low tunnel with a blind corner. I walked to one of it and sniffed. The air wasn't fresh but it didn't stink. I tested every other exit but everywhere I could smell the same mouldy air. This could mean that there is no end to these tunnels, and I am very far from the real exit.

I looked up at the hole through which I fell. I could even try climbing through it if I wasn't be a quadruped. I chose the tunnel at the left for absolutely no reason. The tunnel turned left and got tighter but there was still some space between me and both walls. As I was walking on the irregular ground, which required some agility to step on, I started wondering what was exactly happening around.

First, some firebird which others called Moltres hit in the mountain which unfortunately appeared to be long-inactive volcano making it erupt, burning the great valley of greenery forcing me to escape to the mountains where I met mighty blizzard and a giant evil ice-cube.

Then suddenly the tight tunnel ended and I entered a much bigger one, I again had to choose a direction: right or left. I also noticed two paths of prints, it was regular pointed small holes in ice similar to holes my glaceon's claws made to grip onto the slippery ice. But no creature could have such a strange claw pattern, and it was stinking in the odour of artificial gum.

 _Of course, only humans were missing here._

But that actually saved me from wandering, if a human walked here before, then the path they took had to be an exit. Following the human tracks, I turned to the right. The floor here was much smoother than before and covered slightly by snow, I noticed a few items which proved that there were prints of humans: like broke icicles which someone found necessary to touch, weird forms made in the snow or engraved in walls. As I stepped, the ground became dirtier and finally become yellow-brown sand. I exited the tunnel I found myself at the edge of the thick forest with ground overgrown by ferns, smartweed, poppy and other kinds of weeds. It was much hotter here so I quickly lost my ice-type and changed to leafeon. I saw that mountains were now far behind me with black clouds above them. I smiled, maybe I was at last lucky that I fall to this cave, I would probably still wandering somewhere in a blizzard and that I walked under it.

I sighed and stretched as if I just woke up, I was again on track to wandering through the world. As long as there is somewhere to go there is no reason to worry. I hadn't planned any specific way to go, so I simply went straight ahead. The forest was a mixture of trees, big sharp rocks and thick bushes, I could hear humming stream of water in the distance.

When I ventured deeper into the forest I heard shouts and sounds not typical to the forest. I followed the source of the sound, crawling through the high weeds, hiding in bushes and looking what was ahead. A few meters from me was a pair of humans one male and another female. The male had short dark hair wear unbuttoned imitation leather biker jacket and blue pants, the female had a light t-shirt, colourful winter coat in her hands and the similar pair of pants, both of them had stuffed backpacks. Before them was running and jumping on male's commands quadruped fox-like pokemon with red-brown fur, pointed ears and six orange curled tails. From the slim figure, I judged that the vulpix was female. I saw them having fun with each other. But for me, it was a sad sight: a pokemon who was raised by humans, never tried living on her own, and was seeing someone's commands as "fun" because she was trained to see them in that way.

There was no future for pokemon like her, they were no more than an addition to the human, and sent into the wild they would die quickly not being able to find food or a safe place to sleep.

I wasn't even sure if they have still their own will if they were doing everything that humans told them to do, depending on one routine.

Eat, sleep, fight, repeat.

I never saw a vulpix before but this one looked young; yet with eyes of experienced pokemon. She was tired of following human's orders but she kept a smile on her face.

I left them going backwards through the same way which I came but be a mistake I stepped on a dry twig, even if the forest wasn't silent the sound of broken twig was unnaturally loud.

I heard the command to use some attack, guessing that I would be a target I lied flat on the ground and after the second air above me was on fire. Bushes before me were burned exposing me to the sight of humans.

"Hi," I said, which to humans would be heard like 'Leaf'. I turned to run.

"I will catch him!" I heard a confident, gentle but mature voice of vulpix. I wasn't afraid of being captured, but I didn't want to fight the fire-fox.

I ran to the direction from where I earlier could hear the flow of water. After few turns, I was before stream which wasn't broad but I couldn't make him in one jump, I landed close to the opposite bank and exited the water before I could change to vaporeon.

If I couldn't make it in one jump than smaller vulpix also couldn't, and she wouldn't risk being soaked or I thought she wouldn't. When I wasn't visible from the stream bank I slowed down to a walk.

I decided that it was a good time to rest. I stayed awake the last day and night, I also didn't want to sleep at night and it was noon now. But when I finally found a branch big enough to be comfortable for me and hidden deep in foliage I heard a splash of the water.

 _Did this vulpix really try to catch me?_

The answer came when from above I saw the soaked and tired vulpix slowly going through the bushes. She was dragging her six wet tails behind her, which were covered with small leaves and twigs. She looked as if she ran a marathon, plowing through every possible plant on her way until stream stopped her. She made few more steps forward before she collapsed, exhausted.

I knew that training in Distortion World left me in much better shape than other pokemon. But that wasn't that far of a distance to run to become exhausted like that. Then again, what could I expect from someone who was running only on a flat battle arena, humans roads and maybe occasionally grassy clearings. The forest here was on undulating terrain and full of medium sized plants. I noticed that my 'hunter' fall asleep under the tree on which I was.

Seeing that I sighed, my first day were hard for me in this world, I needed to learn how to be 'wild' but I already knew how to hunt and keep myself safe. Falling asleep in the middle of the forest uncovered wasn't a bright idea, not every wild pokemon I meet would kill randomly sleeping vulpix. But she didn't even check if it was someone's territory. What if it was, for example, my ground, and seeing someone here could make me upset enough to hurt it. She didn't even notice me on the tree under which she fell asleep!

 _So hopeless._

" _But maybe she can change? Just with a little help_ ," Myron suggested in pleading tone.

"Are you expecting me to take care of her?" I asked, couldn't believe in that idea.

" _Maybe not taking care of her, just to show her the world from another point of view than she sees it now, we were in similar situation, not with humans but with Giratina,_ " Myron explained.

"Even if I would try, she came to catch me, it can be hard to convince her," I said turning to my back staring at the sky.

 _"Kill her and there won't be a problem,_ " said the electric side of me but as usually was ignored.

 _Maybe her human will come and take her?_

I waited long but he didn't come, it was getting late and I didn't even hear talking voices which usually accompanied a group of human. I looked down on still unconscious pokemon.

"I'm not taking care of her, I'm just... making sure that she won't die this night," I said silently to myself, getting down from the tree.

I walked to vulpix and gently inserted leaf-like tail under her body. My tail wasn't strong enough to lift her but I could drag her on it.

It was impossible to return to the tree crown with her, I needed to find some other hidden place. Walking through the forest just before nightfall, I found a deep niche in the land, covered by fallen rotten tree. I put her at the back of the niche.

Being leafeon I had a weak connection to the plants, but I was able to sense some fruits. I couldn't eat them but maybe the vulpix would when she woke up. It wasn't far, just a few meters at left from the temporary den. I gathered a few small round fruits on my tail, but when I was walking back I lost them when my form changed to umbreon, whose tail wasn't flat and broad, which was useless for my purpose. If I focused I could stay in leafeon form because I didn't lose contact with plants in the forest. Dark energy was just stronger and without control was dominating others.

I made a pile from the fruits on the ground and left them as I hadn't any option to transport them without covering them in saliva. I crawled on the fallen tree before the niche and lied on it. Because I missed my earlier planned nap I was sleepy, but I knew that because of glowing rings I was very visible in the darkness, so I tried to stay awake.

The night was calm, I noticed few other dark-types, mostly flying ones and maybe saw a ghost-type but I wasn't sure about it. Nothing was ever sure with ghosts. Temperature lowered a lot, a shiver went through my body when the night wind penetrated my fur coat. I didn't like a temperature like that one, too warm to change to glaceon, too cold for every other possible form. I felt that it is warm coming from the niche. I stood up and I entered the den. The source of the warmth was fox-like pokemon. I admitted that she was useful even sleeping. I curled not too close but also not too far from her, facing the broad entrance.

I wasn't sure if I fell asleep for a moment but I noticed that it started getting lighter. I stood up and returned to the same spot on which I was before I felt coldness.

The morning was refreshing, a still cold breeze blew from the stream's direction contrasting the warm rays of the rising orange sun. I wasn't able to rest enough in this or last night and now I felt the result of being two days without sleep.

 _I didn't even start showing her 'true' life and I already was tired because of that, why am I even doing that?_

" _Because it reminds you of yourself_ ," Myron hurried with an answer.

"Is that the only reason?" I asked trying to stop yawning, I didn't expect any answer. If I already started helping I would try to continue doing that. I hadn't any plans for now just to go ahead until I find something interesting on the road but I could also try to adapt her to wilderness.

To feel more awake, I ran across some higher undergrowth, which was wet because of dew. Close contact with plants made my change to leafeon faster and water made me feel fresher. I went to the vulpix's place and found her still sleeping.

"Hey, wake up," I said loudly, her ears tricked signalising that she heard but she didn't move. I move closer and said again. "Hey, it's morning already." I poked her with a paw.

"Put me into a ball if we need to move already," she answered still being in the dream world and curling even tighter.

"There are no balls in the wilderness," I said little puzzled. _Did she really prefer those small prisons to just waking up?_

"Wilderness?" she said immediately fully awake, she looked nervously around ending at me. "Didn't I catch you?"

"No, it seems that I caught you," I said when she was standing up. "What is your name anyway?"

"Vulpix, but what you mean that you caught me? Wild pokemon can't catch other pokemon," she said and noticed how dirty she was, winced she started pulling out small twigs and leaves from her tails.

"I mean that I brought you here but this is your species name, I asked for your real name. For example, mine is..." I thought about it for few second "...Myron" I finally said.

" _Why me_?" asked surprised Myron.

"That was all your idea," I answered him shortly.

"What was my idea?" Vulpix asked, I forgot that she was listening.

" _How you could forget? She is just standing before you,_ " Kilian said in a bored tone but I ignored him focusing on the pokemon before me.

"Ehm, nothing. So what was your name?" I questioned her again.

"I already said it, my name is Vulpix, I was named as that by my master but what am I doing here?" Raised by humans, she didn't even have her own name, no personality, no will, just a body following orders.

"Well, you were following me but I easily outran you, when I was about to take a nap I saw you: dirty and tired. You fell asleep under the tree where I was, which wasn't such a smart idea, maybe not everyone will kill you instantly... "- _like me during my hunting trip_ -"... but you didn't even check your surroundings."

The loud growl of a stomach answered me but that wasn't mine. I looked at the Vulpix but she looked away embarrassed.

"I..., I need to return to my human, I'm hungry," she said. "Could you tell me which way I can find him?"

"No, I didn't see him since you were with him but there is no need to have a human to eat something," I said and looked in the way where I dropped fruits, checking that they were still there. "There are some fruits over there, I wanted to gather them but I dropped them because ... em," I didn't want to say that I just changed to umbreon for a while and trying to explain my biology but it seemed that Vulpix didn't even pay attention what I was saying after she heard 'fruits' so I let it go. She walked to the small lying balls and examined them.

"What are those?" She asked curiously.

What are these fruits, I didn't know if I answer wrong she could become suspicious why leafeon don't know some plants which with he could have some connection and should know names of round popular everywhere growing fruits.

" _Maybe currants_?" suggested Myron also unsure.

"Currants," I repeated quickly.

She looked at the fruits one more time. I waited in suspense for her verdict. It appeared that fact of fruits lying on the ground didn't bother her, she started to eat. She ate every 'currant' and turned to me.

"I never saw currants like these but I guess that leafeon couldn't make mistake in naming the fruit," She said, I wasn't sure if I could sigh with relief just yet.

"I just picked whatever I found," I said.

"Oh! You remind me, I was about to catch you!" she said pushing away the problem with fruits naming. Vulpix made some distance between us and made a pose. I guessed that she wanted a fight but the pose was more like for some presentation than a fight, which with her cleaner than before but still, dirty appearance looked rather weird.

"Are you really want to fight me? You slept half of a day just after running after me," I said very unsure about this idea, she couldn't be a challenge. She was still obeying orders. "You don't need fulfilling other's orders, didn't you ever thought about... living on your own?"

She stared at me uncomprehendingly.

"But I'm living on my own and don't be such sure about your win. I'm a trained pokemon, I can win with every wild one and I will prove my usefulness to my master after I beat you. Don't you feel a little lucky? Your life is about to change for the better." For the better? How could her sad limited life be better than my freedom.

"So you are living on her own? What was last thing what you did on your own then?" I wanted to know which 'on her own' she meant.

"I'm fighting on my own," she answered quickly.

"Controlled by a human," I added to show her that wasn't completely 'on her own'. She grimaced but didn't undeniable.

"I am umm... eating..."

"What human will serve you," I cut her off.

"I will beat you anyway! And save you from the wilderness," she said, visibly irritated, charging up some fire attack and unleashing it. I moved from fire's way, this attack was extremely slow, I didn't even need to jump or did anything fast. Seeing no effect of her attack, she repeated it but the result wasn't different.

"Your flames are looking fine but you are posing and attacking like if it was some presentation. It is not how a real fight should look like," I announced after another attempt to catch me on fire. "Maybe try from a closer range? That would be easier for you to aim."

" _Do you really gave advice to your opponent?_ " Kilian asked seriously.

"Oh, come on. She isn't danger, the way she fights is quite funny," I answered calming him.

Vulpix looked at me weirdly as if I was crazy or something.

"Am I funny?! I will show you that I'm serious!" she squealed and ran to me. When she was close she exhaled a stream of flames, just I said her to do. Now I needed to use some of my agility to duck but still, I was unharmed.

"See? Much better if you would be raised in the wild you would get that idea 'by yourself'," I said hard accenting 'by yourself'. My comments were getting her angry but she didn't answer this time covering her whole body in flames and running to me again. I turned and jumped up the nearby tree, digging claws in the tree's bark I climbed quickly onto some lower branch. Seeing that I was out of her range she stopped and look up at me.

"Get down from there!" she screamed angrily.

"New situation and you don't know what you should do, where is your own invention? Can you do something without command?" I was rude but maybe she would see her mistake.

"You are talking to me about a true fight but you are only running from my attacks. Are you suggesting that being wild means being a coward?" She said with fire escaping her mouth. I decided that lesson should end. I didn't want to make her hate me and it seemed that she had enough.

I jumped from the tree to the ground close to Vulpix flank and quickly spun slapping her by the flat side of leaf tail making her fly to the ground. I waited until she got up before I ran to her, she let another stream of fire but easily dodged it and slapped her again. Using the flat side of the tail couldn't make any injury but must have stung a lot. She got up again and rubbed where she got hit.

"Are you fighting until you faint?" I asked and she nodded, all her confidence and posing were gone now.

I moved again and she again tried a counter with fire which I dodged by changing my running direction a little. I started spinning again to hit but I noticed that she closed her eyes, she was waiting for a final hit, trained to stay in place until someone told her to move. I stopped my tail close before her head and I only gently touched her cheek with my tail.

"You can't do anything without someone telling you to do, can't you? I have my own invention, that's why I won. Return to your human if you don't have your own, weakling." It was only a battle but I doubted that in other situations she would be more self-reliant. I returned to the same tree which I used during the fight because I found it comfortable back then. When Vulpix noticed that hit didn't come she opened her eyes and looked quite surprised.

"I was beaten by the wild pokemon," she said very quietly, her pride was gone. I probably wasn't addressee of these words. "After all that training, just because I hadn't a command?" She slowly lied on her stomach where she was standing.

"Myron, how is it, living in the wilderness?" I heard her asking after a while, louder than before but still silent and unsure.

"You usually stay in a pack of your kind, unless you are of a loner species. When you want to eat you eat when you want to sleep you sleep, everything depends on your idea of how you want to live," I answered her didn't looking on her or lifting my head.

"And you live like that? If yes then why you could beat me so easily, I was trained for a fight."

 _Because I am not born in the wild and was raised like you, for one purpose._

"I'm going through the world looking at things which I find interesting and often get into trouble..." _-because of my nature..._ "I am not sure if this is luck since this made my journey more interesting or I'm just unlucky since sometimes it can be dangerous."

"Do you think that pokemon who never was wild and only sporadically visited places like that can learn how to become 'wild'?" she asked with hope.

"I think that a pokemon needs to be sure of its decision and be able to change, but yes it is possible," I replied _. I was an exampl_ e. She didn't say anything more, it seems this conversation had ended.

" _I think that was a little too harsh_ ," said Myron after a while of lying on a branch.

" _It was fine, it depends on how she thinks about what you said,_ " Zenon the vaporeon rejected.

" _If she sees her limits pointed out she would be able to change,_ " said Kilian.

" _But if not, she will just return to some human and act as nothing happened,_ " continued Flareon.

" _I think she's already decided,_ " said Lasota the espeon.

I looked down to find creature which I didn't saw before. Under the tree was on four slender legs standing pokemon covered in luxurious yellow-white and orange on the ends of the nine long tails, fur.

"I'm not sure if it is a name but in the past, someone named me...," former vulpix said in new astonishing voice "... Naert."


	5. Chapter 5 'Naert'

[2/2]

* * *

It was two days since I was joined by clumsy female ninetales in my journey, completely oblivious how to survive in the wilderness and having problems with controlling her own body. I could understand these problems, I knew the feeling when you gain control on the unknown to you, new body. Most problematic for her appeared to be controlling her new tails, before her evolution she has only or even six of them but now it was nine and they were much longer and more mobile.

The second most problematic thing were much longer legs, she already reminded to herself how to walk but it was still looking awkward and abnormal. Less problematic was something that she called 'inner fire', something that was burning inside of her all the time, but I didn't believe her. At first I didn't notice anything wrong but when she tried some of her fire moves she loses control of her fire and I permanently banned her from using anything fire-related.

How lucky I have the ability to rebuild damaged parts of the body, I wouldn't still have my long leaf on my forehead without that. I managed to convince her that it was natural because I'm part plant and plants can do such thing (and they really can, but not that fast). I felt some kind of pride about my leaf on forehead and tail as leafeon, they seem to be longer than leaves of other leafeons I met before even if my appearance wasn't the showiest.

I noticed that she wanted to learn how to become a wild pokemon but she was doing this in wrong way, she was waiting until I commanded her what to do. That wasn't how I wanted it to be like.

I decided to hide my true self for now, so I stayed in leafeon form even in the night, watching closely so I didn't lose contact with plants for too long, which wasn't hard considering that we were in the middle of the forest. We were heading towards the south, Naert was walking before me sweeping the ground with her tails. For now, she gave up trying to control them and was only dragging them behind, they had already lost their white-yellow colour and become dirty brown and full of leaves.

"Is it edible?" she asked, pointing at something which I couldn't see standing behind her but I felt which plants were ahead.

"You ate this in the day which we met, yesterday and today's morning so yes they are edible," I answered boredly. The food was something that I didn't need to command her.

" _She has the same problems with memorising plants like you,_ " noticed Myron.

"Said my leafeon side who know only one fruit," I answered him while Naert was busy with examining strange for her plants and finally ate some of them.

"These ones are so sweet, come and try some!" she called cheerfully from thick bushes.

"No thanks, I don't eat fruits," I answered.

"You didn't eat since two days, are you ill?" she asked with worry.

"No, I am fine, leafeons can survive only with water and the sun," I wasn't sure if this was true but for now it was working, I also noticed that staying a long time in grass form altered by body: my leaves were longer and greener than ever from absorbing the sun's rays.

"Ah, I forgot, you are part of plant yes? If I am proposing you plants to eat is it like offering you part of you to eat?" she asked.

"Actually I am not very sensitive to plants so it is okay but I won't eat them," I didn't want to become really ill. Seeing my decline she packed her muzzle with as many fruits she managed to fit and we continued going to the south. If she really had inner flame it needed to burn everything that she ate, she didn't miss any edible thing on our way.

"Were humans starving you or you are trying to eat the whole forest?" I asked walking with her side by side when she gulped what she had in her mouth. "There are things which humans don't have but I think that food they have too much of."

"No, it is just because of we-I mean trained pokemon-have some fruits to eat only when we get some injury during the fight," she answered, visibly embarrassed by my remark.

"They feed you only after you got an injury? You needed to be beaten quite often if you are still alive," I said surprised, how did it even worked? This mean that better was to lose and be injured then win?

"No no, we were fed three times per day, fruits were only to make our injury heal faster," she explained. We, our, trained pokemon. I repeated these words in my mind. She was still seeing herself as not wild. In the same moment, Naert suddenly stopped and fell on her stomach. I looked back and saw that her tails again caught to some root.

"What stupid tails!" she yelled angry looking back and tried to free them but she hadn't much control on it. "Not this one!" she screamed again when she moved again different tail than she wanted and was about to burn the poor root.

"No fire! We are in the forest, you could burn everything here!" I warned her and carefully cut annoying root with a fast slash of my thin side of leaf tail freeing her.

"Thank you," she said with relief and added irritated. "I don't understand why my kind needs to have so many tails, you have just one and it is much more useful than mine nine."

"Well, if every ninetales have nine tails then there need to be some purpose of that," I said trying to calm her. As we continued our walk she started again practising her control of the new body and became irritated again. I stayed silent not wanting to become an object of irritation.

At the end of the day, there was some progress. She learned how to move two of her tails, the rest were still undulating chaotically when she tried to use them. I also noticed that after she learned that, her walk becomes less grotesque.

It wasn't time to sleep yet, I found a good spot on the ground to sleep later: a pit under the bush. I could sleep on a tree but Naert couldn't. While she was vulpix I could try to carry her somehow up the tree but now she was much larger than me, there wasn't even a chance that I could to that. Naert in the meantime was digging into nearby bushes and when she finished she sat close to the pit and looked at me, waiting for something.

"No, I won't give you any command," I said facing her.

She looked away from me so that I couldn't see her face expression.

"I, I just wanted to ask why you are doing this? I wanted to change your life because of my master ... former master ordered me that but you changed mine, why do you bother yourself with some annoying vulpix?" she asked seriously but didn't look at me again.

"The question should be why I am still bothering myself with even more annoying ninetales," I answered her.

"Hey!" she snorted and turned to me.

"Calm down, I'm kidding. Why am I trying to adapt you to the wilderness? I just thought that you never had a chance to choose your own path in life," I answered her, saying what I really thought. "So I tried to give you a choice."

She was still looking somewhere in the deep forest and it started to become dark and cold. Summer was about to end, every next day would be colder and colder. When I felt cold I stood up and entered the pit taking the place close to the entrance and bush which was covering the entry. I lied in that way to touch leaves of the bush. But the pit wasn't warmer than outside.

"Naert!" I called. "Come inside and warm here a little, I am freezing," I said because of thin fur coat of leafeon, I feel coldness much more than it really was. My leaves changed its colour to the darker shade. After a second, the ninetales entered the pit and warmed me a few times with her uncontrolled tails before she finally laid down. The interior immediately become hotter by fire creature heat and it made me quickly sleepy.

* * *

I woke up at morning when first rays of the sun entered the pit. I yawned and stretched but didn't open my eyes. Then I felt that something soft was restricting my movement. When I opened my eyes I found myself covered in mostly yellow (but dirty) tails of Naert who was lying much closer than I remember she laid yesterday. I didn't want to admit it, but it was a pleasant feeling being covered by her warm blanket of tails.

I couldn't find strength or motivation to stand up so I stayed on the ground, I only checked that I am still leafeon and closed my eyes again. I was lying like that very long when I heard that Naert woke up but I acted as if I was still asleep. I felt that blanket being pulled away from me and I almost told her to stop.

I heard her exiting the pit, probably to find something to eat. No matter if she had her inner flame or not, she needed to use some energy to warm up our pit. Without a blanket, lying on the ground lost its enjoyment, and I stood up. Then I noticed that it was high noon outside, I never before slept that long but also never before I felt so rested as now. I was thirsty but dew on the leaves already faded away.

I didn't find Naert in the bushes around the pit, I didn't find her behind the bushes and even when I walked few circles around the pit, going further and further through the forest, I still didn't find her.

She wasn't walking alone earlier through the wilderness, something bad could happen to her. That thought was making me more and more nervous with every minute. I returned to the pit and looked for some tracks on the ground. At first, I didn't saw anything but when I looked closely I saw that there was a path of combed grass, guessing that she was again dragging her tails. The path was leading straight ahead. Running I followed the tracks.

 _How did I miss that in the first place?_

" _It seems that you care for her,_ " chirped Myron when I ran some distance.

"Yes, I care, it was me who convinced her to become wild. If she dies now because of that it would be as if I killed her," I answered him when the path became switchbacks. It seems that she lost direction and started to make random turns.

" _I mean that you care-care for her,_ " twittered Myron and probably would nudge me if he only could.

"No, I am just..."

" _She touched you and you didn't say a word, you even enjoyed that, do you remember when last time someone touches you and didn't lose its hand, paw or whatever he could use to it? You are really insane if you try lying to me. I am a part of you, I know your feelings,_ " continued Myron. " _And look at you now, you are running for her in worry tha-tree ahead!_ "

"What?" I said and before I could react, I ran into a tree before me. My vision became dark but was slowly returning. When my vision returned to normal my head was overwhelmed by a wave of throbbing pain.

"Stupid tree," I said going shakily around the giant dark tree and grit my teeth to counter the pain in my head. On the other side of the tree, through the bushes, I could see a stream of the water with a small beach where Naert was standing.

But she wasn't just standing, she was standing proudly, stretched with head height and with lifted completely clean tails curled in the middle. She was facing something that I couldn't see on my right. I blinked, astonished at how beautiful she looked, I almost didn't recognise her, like just after her evolution.

She made a few steps slowly and majestically to the right, to the left. Then she started walking in normal tempo, not losing her grace, but then suddenly her walk become staggered. She lost her balance and her tails started waving chaotically, it looked like she tried to regain her balance, not losing her proud posture, but she had stumbled on something on the ground and fell on her face.

So she was practising her new body. But why she didn't say anything to me and why she was doing this alone? I could be of help.

"Nine," I heard her saying. " How can I control all nine at once?"

Yes, that was still the same clumsy Naert which I knew. When she stumbled, I snapped out, magic which pinned my eyes to her disappeared somewhere. I walked through the bushes on the beach and approached her from her right. I didn't think about it, but I noticed that I was sneaking up to her, not making any sound.

 _Habits._

Naert didn't notice me and was still in her thoughts.

"Hi, what are you doing so alone here?" I said, acting as if I hadn't seen what she was doing. I scared her, immediately getting her attention.

"You need to stop sneaking like that, someday I will burn you by mistake," she warned me, standing up but not as confidently as earlier. "I was training and I improved in controlling my fire!" she added proudly.

"Just don't use it again close to me, please," I answered reminding how easily and quickly leaves could be burned.

"I promise, I won't burn you ever again, that was an accident," she said, embarrassed by the earlier event. I actually doubted that promise, when she get control on her changes we probably would have some battles. I remembered the way in which she was fighting and my false assumption that she need to learn how to fight from the very basics.

Then, for the first time since three days I felt hunger, I couldn't go on a hunting trip with Naert. But there was a solution, I walked to the stream and satisfied my thirst. With water inside of me and the sun above, my leaves continued doing its photosynthesis and I stopped feeling hunger. This way was easier than hunting but living only on photosynthesis was making me lazy that I would just lie somewhere in the sun doing nothing.

"Did you eat something today?" I asked. I didn't want to stay in one place too long, every next day will be colder and I knew a great place with microclimate to stay for the winter.

Also, I didn't know how long Naert would stay with me and I didn't want to show her my changing type ability: it wasn't something that I could explain easily. It wasn't a problem for me to survive the winter as glaceon but glaceons usually stay in packs with other eeveelutions in shelter and stock of food for the winter. For me, a lone wanderer, it would be hard to find something to eat and because of the long winter nights, I couldn't change to leafeon to survive on the water and the sun.

"Yes, I already ate," she answered.

"That's good, so we can keep going," I said happily and went to the south.

"But where are we going?" She asked following me.

"Well, you joined the wild at a very bad time. The summer is ending and winter is coming: it is like a great pause. Living with humans you may not notice that. We are going to the place where it won't be that cold," I answered. "I am a grass-type, cold is as just as unfriendly to me as fire or perhaps even more so," I added, playing my role.

"Poor you, being grass-type you need to avoid both: cold and fire," she remarked bantering.

 _Yeah, being only one type sucks._

"Just like you don't like to assimilate with water," I responded. I reminded that she didn't mention that she was also practising walking, very pretty looking walking. Was it shame for her that she need to practise such basic thing as walking? Finding balance in a new body which was so much different than her former one was a typical process. Eeveelutions don't usually have much problem with that as the evolved form is quite similar to eevee, some exceptions being espeon and vaporeon: these two has the biggest difference between primary form.

Our path became narrow and winding, with uphill climbs full of tree roots which were growing incredibly thick here, but Neart was fine keeping her tails low, but still above the ground.

"I see that you become better at that, maybe you are thinking too much to control everything new in that body. You should just relax, probably this would be more helpful than practising," I pointed out.

"Thank you, but how can relaxing and not thinking about it could be helpful? And if I finally learn these things how to live and survive in the wild what will happen with me? What would I do next?" she inquired.

"It is your decision what you will do, you are free. I think relaxing can help you to start to naturally control this, you can't spend your whole life focused on your tails," I informed her, jumping above of the tree roots, which were not very high but still high enough to prevent it me from crossing it.

"Can I ask you a question about life in the wilderness?" she asked passing the same root, without jumping.

 _Long legs have an advantage…beautiful legs._

"Sure, I am here to help," I stated, stopping and turned to her.

"How do types work here, I mean while I was with humans, types are important only on the battlefield but here there are no humans here to control us," she questioned, also stopping.

"Hmm, I think that we shouldn't consider every pokemon of the same type as the same. But usually there are small wars between types. A territory is usually a main reason but sometimes just advantage of one type of another cause some fights," I started explaining sitting down, there was much to say.

"Let's say for example we have an inactive volcano of some kind where fire types live. Under it is a lake with water types, but between the mountain and the lake is a forest with grass types. In the mountain, there is also a source of the water for the lake. Pokemon who live in the lake for some reason would want to have the source of the water as they want to be sure that no one will put anything harmful into the water. Or they just want more space for themselves but obviously, pokemon living on the mountain won't just leave their territory.

"Water types, having the advantage on fire types, sooner or later would win the fight and force fire types to leave their territory. But close to it is the forest so fire-types would easily win against grass types, taking their territory, which causes grass-types to look for another place. And because water types were the reason why they lost their dens, they go against water types to fight. And so we have never ending circle. Simply put, different types don't like each other, especially these which have very big advantages or disadvantages to each other like water-types are afraid of grass-types or ghost-types are afraid of dark-types."

"Or grass-types of fire-types," she added, "You aren't afraid of me, are you?"

"No I'm not, but these concepts don't work with eeveelutions, can you even imagine why? If leafeon parents have an eevee as a child and this child evolved into flareon, the parents won't become afraid of their own child," I pointed out, amused by her thought. "Because we, I mean eeveelutions, keep together not caring about type, other species don't like us too much. It is as if we were some other type hated by everyone type. But remember that not everyone who you will meet will be like that. If you will be lucky you may meet many friendly water-types.

Maybe I sounded like I knew what I was talking about: things I learned only by observation. I hoped that she didn't want to go into details.

Because of this long talk, I became thirsty again but there was nothing to drink.

"That is complicated," she summed up. "Now I see how lucky I was that I met you, all of this could look completely different if you would be afraid of me."

"Um, no problem, you were more funny to watch than scary." How could I be afraid of my night blanket? As she hadn't more questions we continued our trip. Because of how long I slept today, I lost track of time and it already had become late afternoon.

"What was so funny in my fight, besides the fact that I was waiting for commands," she questioned after a minute, it seems that her earlier pride didn't leave her completely. I noticed that when she didn't focus on her walking it become better, more natural and normal.

"Your posture. You were more focused on looking good than winning. But you also expected victory," I cackled and smiled when she smiled, summoning the memory of our fight. "You have a long life ahead, so be prepared that I will always remind you about it."

"You won't beat me like that the second time," chirped Neart, standing proudly like when I saw her next to the stream.

"Sure, now you are too big for a simple leaf snap," I laughed and nuzzled her side and I felt that a shiver went through her body but only after a moment did I realise what I have done. I wanted to say sorry but she spoke faster.

"Let try if you can still beat me, it will be like some light training. I won't use fire but you won't use any grass-type thing," she proposed and not waiting for my response she moved few meters from me. "And your tail, I consider it as a grass-type thing too."

"Wait, then how I am supposed to fight?" Even biting hadn't sense, teeth of leafeon were short and not sharp and I doubted if she wanted to fight with biting.

"That is your problem," she said and approached me fast, I saw that she already changed her fighting style from positional to more aggressive. I avoided her paw, jumping to the left, but she followed me and I jumped backwards increasing the distance between us again.

Then Naert jumped high and tried to pin me to the ground, but I ducked under her so that she landed behind me. But I didn't even turn to face her when I felt two soft and warm things wrapped around my stomach and another one around my neck immobilising me and when few more things shrouded me it lifted me from the ground. I looked back not sure what just happened and I saw that I was enveloped in Naert's tails and that she wasn't even looking. When she turned to me her head I saw a wide smile on her face.

"I did it!" she trilled happily.

"When did you learn that?" I asked, I really wasn't expecting anything new from her, maybe she was learning faster than I thought or maybe that was because of changes after evolution? I knew nothing about her species but maybe there was some intelligence improvement after she evolved. Not that I thought that she was stupid before.

"I learned this just now, you told me to relax and I did that!" Praised the young ninetales. "See? I beat you!"

"Congratulations, you beat defenceless pokemon, you can be proud," I said jesting.

"Oh don't be like that, you don't know how to lose," she said cheerfully and settled me gently down on the ground but some of her tails were wrapped around me. I looked at her inquiringly for what she was waiting but then I met her sight of eyes like rubies.

We stared at each other in silence and I felt that I was losing myself in her deep oceans of reds and I saw that she was also becoming entranced by my eyes.

 _My eyes!_

I quickly broke our eyes' connection, hoping that I didn't hypnotise her, making her blindly following me now because of my eye's ability. But when I looked at her again, not in the eyes, I saw that she was fine-maybe only a little disappointed.

"Uhmm eh, we are close," I mumbled, she nodded and unwrapped me letting me go.

Soon we were at the bald top to of the hill, having a wide view of the landscape. The landscape mostly the forest, cave-in at the horizon. There was a deep giant hole in a shape of a circle. At the bottom of the hole there were trees and bushes as if it was a normal forest. This was our destination, the microclimatic hole where the whole year was as if it was spring.

"You mention that other species are unfriendly to your kind, why?" she asked while we were going to the round valley.

"They have their reasons, mainly because they can't stand that we have the multi-types pack so we stay neutral if there were some conflict. Also, we are quite rare, and because of that, there are a lot of humans who are looking for us. Because we attract humans, no one wants to have packs of my kind in its territory," I answered her as we were walking through the tall grass of large clearing.

Here was the wildest place which I knew, even pokemon didn't live here. It was the ideal place to spend the winter. But I wasn't coming here in the every winter because it was also a little risky. If the temperature in the valley suddenly lowered I could freeze as leafeon, or change to glaceon and die from hunger. Luckily that never happened, but it never was hot enough to be comfortable and it was often raining. But now I had firefox with me and I hoped that she would share some heat when a situation required that.

"But... where is your pack then?" she asked and I looked at her surprised

"What?"

"You always are saying about your kind as a pack but you are alone," she pointed out. "Did you lose your group?"

"No, I just never was in a pack and never joined any," I answered trying not sound sad. I always wanted to join some but there was always something that prevented me from that, usually my nature.

" _But you have us,_ " Myron tried to cheer me up, or it was just me who didn't want to feel sad.

I guided us down the narrow and steep descent excavated by water aeons ago and was leading to the valley, unfortunately in the descent was dark. When it was dark then there were no plants and I couldn't stay as leafeon. Staying at the edge of the grassy ground thinking about possible solutions, Naert noticed that I stopped and looked at first at me and then at the dark path.

"You're not telling me that you are afraid of the darkness, are you?" she asked worriedly. I smiled at her.

"Race you!" I yelled and ran at top speed down the hole.

"That's not fair!" I heard her behind as distance between us grew bigger and bigger. Even if leafeons didn't see well in the dark I was seeing as if it was middle of the day. I hoped that Naert wouldn't have much trouble with that either.

Maybe she was now taller, had longer legs and could beat me in our short sparring sessions, but speed wasn't something that she could gain with evolution and a few days of adapting to the wilderness. When I looked behind I saw far behind me an orange light, she was probably lighting up the way. It wasn't far to the end of the passage which was overwhelmed by the light of the day but I didn't manage to reach the end in time before I transformed to eevee and lost a lot of my speed.

Now I could see that orange light was coming closer, she probably didn't even need to run to be faster than me in my current form. She would probably catch me but luckily where the passage ended was in a valley. Without stopping I ran into the thick bushes and lay flat on the ground.

 _Now! Change! Faster!_

I saw that Naert had also exited the passage and was looking around the place, then she lowered her head to the ground and sniffed. She was sniffing a while and finally, her face expression changed to very puzzled. If I were following a leafeon and then sniffed eevee I wouldn't be any less puzzled. I looked at my paws to find that they are still brown. I didn't want to risk forcing a form change but I hadn't much more time. I flattened on the grass, even more, trying to make as much contact with plants as it was possible.

"Um, Myron are you feeling fine?" I heard Naert voice behind which almost made me jump. I fastly looked at her and then again at my paws: they were yellow ended in brown, I managed to change on time.

"Yeah, I am fine," I answered standing up and exiting the bush. " I I-I just became tired because of all this running."

"Oh yes, I have never seen someone running that fast what were you doing before that you became that fast? Racing jolteons?" she spoke, not trying to hide admiration.

 _Jolteons? It would be too easy._

"Maybe," I said quickly. "Follow me, I will show you some nice place here," As we were to spend here some time I wanted to show her place which I called 'the heart of the valley'. The forest here was the thickest forest which I ever saw. I was here before but since last year new trees and bushes had grown.

Going through all undergrowth was a problem even for me but for Naert it was even worse. To her happiness, we entered 'the heart' of the hideout, which was a round clearing, overgrown on the edges by the thick forest. In the clearing grass was growing randomly white calcareous rocks. In the centre was a small pond with water, so clear that it was possible to count stones at the bottom of the pond.

At the bank of the pond were giant and old willow trees which roots spread far along the land and across the water, making narrow natural bridges through the pond. The spreading crown of twisted willow was like a ceiling, with much smaller but long hanging willowy twigs mixed with small linear glossy leaves, sheltering the whole clearing in its shadow.

I guided Naert to the centre of the clearing at the bank of the pond where sun's rays were penetrating through the great willow crown.

There was no end of Naert's 'wows' and 'ohs' as she admired the clearing from different places around the pond. In the meantime I walked to the willow from the land side and swept aside the layer of leaves with my tail to discover the entrance to the den which I dug in the old times as I started my journey through the new life in this world. I could say that it was first place in which I stopped to live in.

The entrance was just tight enough for me, it needed to be changed. So did I, not only for me to be able to walk in without crawling but also for providing a comfortable entry for Naert. When I entered the den I saw that everything was just as I left it, the interior wasn't small as if it could look because of tight entry. The den was long and wide, full of willow's roots going through the ceiling to the ground and walls like some kind of web but it was still enough place between them to move. Because of the tree roots I could sleep here, not being afraid that I change my form during the sleep. I exited the den and saw that Naert ended her admiration of the environment. The day was about to end so I waved her to come and let her inside of the den first.

"So, did you live here?" she asked when I walked inside.

"Yes, long ago," I answered as I went deeper to the den and lay on the wall of roots.

"What happened?"

 _Why there needed to something happen?_

"Nothing, I just wanted to learn about the world more," I answered.

"I think if I would live in the place like this I wouldn't leave it no matter what," she said lying close to me, between me and exit.

"If I would stay here I wouldn't have met you," I blurted out.

I didn't know why I said it, it just came out before I could even think what would it mean. But I didn't feel regret, I felt good with that. There was warm feeling inside, thoughts were going too fast through my head to understand them. Then I found that we were staring at each other just like before, eye to eye, I into her redness, she into my greyness penetrating each other souls and minds going deeper and deeper, looking for this one thing which both of us felt but were too much afraid to say.

She opened her mouth in attempt to say something and I felt that I froze, was it fear? No, it was something different, something which I couldn't name, something which wanted to be thrown out of me but being at the same time too easy to dissipate, lose by doing that. She breathed, pushed her head a little ahead to me, sighed and closed her mouth.

Words weren't needed, we could understand each other without them. Words could only destroy this moment making unnecessary noise deafen the calling of our thirsty souls. I could see what she wanted to say in her eyes just like she saw my answer in mine. I saw a smile appearing on her face, not some grin, but a smile of happiness which couldn't be mistaken with any other. I felt that the same smile appeared on my face, that wasn't something which could be faked, it needed to come without help.

She moved closer to me, I moved closer to her, being side by side and we laid together wrapped around by tails of ninetales.

 _This night was cold, a strong wind was blowing through the heart of the valley, the willow was dangerously bending and cracking because of the gust, waving its twigs chaotically with the whole forest around as old primal magic was freed._

 _Here at the end of the world, this magic becomes stronger than in every other place in the world. Just for this one night which will make history. In this storm, there was a single den under the roots of the old willow where this magic has concentrated, sinking into the two creatures warming the den, which soon will be changed from simple hole under the tree into something greater: into the place of happiness and good memories._

 _It was me, a mutant of the distortion world, tasting the happiest sensation in this world with only one pokemon who became so precious to me. Maybe later it led me to an angry backlash towards this, towards the sadness that was able to rip heart apart._

 _But this day I didn't know that, and so it was better._

 _This night was one of the coldest night in the hidden valley but it was the warmest night of my life._

 _Oh my, how hot it was._


	6. Chapter 6 'Internal conflict'

And there she was, standing in the grassy field as if nothing happened, after so many years. The only one thing different was the way in which she was looking at me. It wasn't the look which I remember but also it wasn't some angry glare. It was very normal sight, as I could give to a stone, the sky or some random pokemon I met. There was no twinkle in her eyes that I used to see.

" _Should we run?_ "

" _What is she doing here?_ "

" _Are you sure that this is real?_ "

" _We are not dreaming!_ "

" _Well we wanted to find her sooner or later,_ "

" _I would prefer later!_ "

" _RUUUN!_ " Yelled the jolteon inside of me, silencing other discussing voices. But not scream silenced everyone but word what was spoken. My dark part of me: most sadistic, bloodthirsty and wild side wanted to run.

" _It seems that something wrong is with him, maybe we were too long avoiding electricity?_ " said Flareon in his sarcastic tone.

" _I don't miss volts going through me,_ " stated Zenon the vaporeon.

" _Focus, we can't screw it, we need to say something_ ," remarked Myron.

" _Or run,_ " added Flareon.

"hr-Hi," I spoke aloud to the pokemon before me.

 _Did she recognise me? Did she remember me? We were long together but separate even longer. What if her feelings died during the time of separation?_

"Hello, is everything okay with you?" she wasn't far away from me but also not too close, in the distance called 'safe'. She was standing stretched, keeping her head high and waving her nine tails behind. I remember that position, she was training that stealthy close after her evolution and showed me only after she mastered it, expecting that she would surprise me, and I faked my surprise.

I was still sitting as I had sat before, in the attempt to practice my psychic powers, she was from my left looking at me with her red eyes.

" _Are we looking as we were ill?_ " questioned Lasota worriedly.

"No... I mean yes everything is fine," I answered her, snapping out of the thoughts.

" _There is something familiar in this espeon,_ " I heard her voice in my head. My psychic was still working without any control.

"Are you from the eeveelutions pack from that direction?" she asked pointing one of her tails to the way where I came here earlier.

" _She can't recognise us, we showed her only our leafeon form,_ " Kilian reminded me.

" _Should we say who we are?_ " questioned Zenon.

" _Yes, say it right now,_ " screamed cheerfully Myron.

" _How we tell her that we are espeon right now, she won't believe us,_ "

asked Lasota.

" _Not mentioning age..._ " Zenon appended.

" _Maybe we will do it later_ ," Flareon proposed.

" _It may don't be later,_ " Myron contradicted.

"Shut up I can't focus," I said to my imagination silently looking down to hide my mouth.

"Um, could you repeat?" she remarked that I was mumbling something to myself.

"I came from there but I'm not from that direction," I said with problems to gather my thoughts "I mean pack, I'm not from local pack." I corrected myself, in the same moment her red eyes met mine.

" _These eyes, they are the same as his,_ " I heard again her mental voice again.

"Do you know leafeon named Myron?" she asked, "He has a longer tail than usual leafeon mostly grey eyes and he doesn't like going far from the plants, it's even his obsession to always was close to some vegetation."

" _She remembers me!_ " Myron said, rejoicing.

"That was me," I cut his happiness getting another weird look from ninetales.

"And he was mumbling things to himself rarely, is he maybe your family?" she asked again.

"Family?" I repeated unsure and looked at her curiously.

"Emm, the pokemon who raised you," she explained and sat down, expecting longer talk.

 _Does that make Giratina my family?_

" _No, she didn't care about us in that way,_ " argued Lasota.

How did I even appear in the Distortion World? I was sure that I remember days when I could be classified as 'normal' eevee and later because of being genetic pokemon in very unnatural for the eevees environment I went through multiple mutations, being manipulated by Giratina when my body tried to adapt to the Distortion World craziness.

But what was earlier? I couldn't remember any earlier memory. Maybe I had been hatched already in Distortion World but what was an egg of eevee doing there and who brought it there?

Maybe somewhere I had real family? But even if so, I wasn't able to find anything about it right now, too much time had passed.

"I don't remember my family," I answered the still waiting ninetales. I decided to act as normal as I could. That wasn't easy, my thoughts were buzzing in my head like in beehive.

" _Stupid, she thinks that you are your own descendant,_ " Kilian said making me aware.

"But why you are looking for him? Are you sure that he is still alive?" I already lived longer than normal eeveelution could. Did she somehow found out my differences?

"I know that he is alive, I don't know how to explain it but I have some weak psychic power and I still feel that he is somewhere even if he ... wait a minute. You are psychic, you can easily find him!" she started to speak very fast and was visibly excited. "Please help me, I have some mistake to repair and I've been looking for him a very long time."

" _Nice, first I asked some fanatic dragon for help and now I ask some insane espeon,_ " I read her thoughts.

 _Dragon? The only trace I found of the pokemon who hunt me was the dragon scale. Dragons were rare to meet so maybe it was the same one._

"Sorry but I'm novice psychic, not able to find anyone by this way," I said, I didn't even know that is possible earlier. "But what are you exactly doing when you are trying to find someone by psychic?"

"Well, I am not psychic-type so I need to focus really hard to 'hear' something. But shouldn't it be natural for you?"

"I can hear voices but I was actually trying to..."- _Recognise them? get used to it?-_ "...practice," I answered.

"Sorry that I disturbed your practice then but was you practising hearing voices?" she said disbelievingly.

"Yes but it is a lot of them, every psychic pokemon hear so many voices at once?" I couldn't image hear it for the rest of my life and I doubted that someone else could change his type.

"No, you usually can read thoughts of someone well known to you or some weak minds. But there are exceptions like dark-types, for psychic pokemon they are like empty space and you know that in the empty space someone is only when you feel him with other senses," she explained. "But no one is around, whose mind did you try to read, mine?"

"No! I didn't even know that you are here," I disclaimed and ignored Kilian's grumbling about that I should pay more attention to my surroundings. "But only minds close to me? " _Then why am I listening to the whole continent?_

"Yes, that's how it works," she assured me. "You didn't notice that?"

 _No._

"Could you say some more about psychic powers? Maybe something about telekinesis?" I asked reminding failure with Rea and glass.

"I know only basics of basics, but maybe show me what you already can do to don't repeat things which you know," she said. I wasn't worried to hear something what I actually knew because I knew nothing.

She looked around and pointed to the tree.

"Maybe try to move this pine cone," she said.

I stood up and walked to the tree, on one of lower branches was hanging big white-brown cone.

I focused on it in the same way which I did with a glass: I tried to reach for it with my invisible paw of psychic, touch it, grab it. I pulled to me, cone started shaking, cone's stem tensioned but didn't uncouple from tree's branch. I again felt weak, cone's stem seems to be like if was made of steel.

"Oh, you can't even do the basics, how did you even evolve to espeon without knowing that. You need to use your emotion to 'fuel' your psychic, some strong one," she instructed me. " Without that, you won't lift anything."

Some strong emotion? I knew my strongest emotions but which one should I use? I knew that I couldn't use my love to Naert now, if she had some psychic powers she could recognise them, my fear... I didn't want to recall that. So maybe my hate toward Giratina? I thought that was the strong one but how to use it as a fuel? It wasn't that easy to just force myself to feel something.

I focused on the pine cone once again trying my best to use my psychic and focusing on Giratina, on how much she destroyed my life and how naive she though I am, that she thought that I would blindly just following her order. The cone, to my surprise, easily was lifted from the tree and was slowly floating to me.

I saw that because of my distraction, the cone started falling. So I focused again recalling Giratina but then everything went black.

I was standing on a flat square of ground which was the only one thing visible here in the dark void. The air was cold and dense as after heavy raining. Here seems to be impenetrable by my eyes, having limited sight I felt very uncomfortable as my fur on the back stood up and ears perked trying to hear anything. Something here was making tense atmosphere but all of this seems to be somehow familiar to me as if I saw it earlier.

"There is no escape from me!" through the darkness boomed powerful harsh but female voice which I knew. I never could forget that voice which I heard my whole time in distortion world. I shrunk, my ears immediately went flat at the back of my head and my split tail hid under my stomach.

I jumped, turning to the source of the voice and saw giant powerful jaws of serpentine ghost dragon inches before my head. I screamed with fear and jumped backwards falling to the back. When I rolled to my side I saw that I was in the forest again I was shaking spasmodically curled tight on the ground.

That wasn't my hate, it never was. There was always only fear, fear to meet her again. That why I was running not looking back, in fear of pain which she did to me which she would do if she could reach me. Death seems to be comfortable compared to that and I knew that I would beg her to let me die if she would someday get me again. Everything just to avoid the pain of changing, of losing myself because of her craziness.

My senses started to return to me, I could feel and noticing my surrounding again then I noticed that ...sobbing? I was really crying, curled tighter than I thought I ever could.

"It's okay, it's okay, calm down everything is okay, it was a just bad memory," I heard calm Naert's voice close to my ear. I lifted my head and saw that she was sitting close to me patting me with two of her tails. "Better?"

"Yes," I answered but my trembling voice showed otherwise. How easily my wall of hate which I built all these years to protect my soul from that fear was ruined, just by seeing Giratina again and it wasn't even real.

Naert's presence was comfortable, even if she didn't know that I was Myron. Or maybe was she? She had a knowledge about psychic so maybe she learned that somehow. She tried to calm me, she touched me and was speaking to me, that wasn't something that everyone would do to random meet pokemon. Or it was like mentioned Kilian that she thought that I found someone after her and now she met my child. But what exactly happened? I tried to use telekinesis, fueled this with my emotions and then everything went crazy.

"What happened?" I asked silently. "Did I do something wrong?"

"You need to choose emotions carefully, I am sorry that I didn't say it earlier. I didn't know that you can have emotions which could scare you so much, everyone has something which they are afraid of, but-but your fear was stronger," she spoke calmly. But I was again stricken by a train of thoughts, what if she don't love me as before? She seems to look for me but she was looking for me to be with me or to something different? If she loved me no more then maybe she would accept new me, Lasota the espeon. Did I even tell her my name?

"My name is Lasota," I said, I never liked this name as it was a name of the bad side of me but I couldn't name myself with my old name now, I wasn't the same as then. I wasn't the same Myron. When did I change so much? Where were my vigour, happiness, curiosity? Did I lose everything what I once had and become a shadow of former-self trying to live a life which wasn't mine?

"I am Naert, nice to meet you," she said nicely and seeing that I didn't need any more petting she moved on some distance. "Not much left from the cone." She added looking down at something on the ground.

I also stood up and walked to her to see on which she was looking. The cone was crushed and full of bruises and there was visible missing some parts. How lucky was that when I was about to lift Rea I used some other emotion, what was that emotion back then? Is it surprise an emotion?

"I think I can't just leave you here," she said after a while, did I made her think that it was something wrong with me? "Come with me I know someone who can take care of you."

I didn't like an idea that she was thinking about me in that way, that I was limited and not able to take care of myself but how could I refuse to come with her.

"Where you want to take me?" I asked her but already was following her.

"To the place where are living a mixed group of fire-types ruled by quite strong charizard, he is a little weird thinking that legendaries gave him a mission to hunt down the evil," she explained assuring me that I probably found my hunter. "I think he wouldn't have anything against psychic type and even as you are eeveelution you may stay there for some time if I ask him and make him sure that you won't start a pack there."

Going to the group of fire-types whose leader wanted me dead maybe wasn't smart, but as I thought about it, he maybe won't recognise me and prey coming to the hunter won't have any sense that it could even work.

We weren't talking during our walk, I was lost in thoughts because of this unexpected meeting and she didn't want to talk too. Environment stayed unchanged and monotonous so much that I became tired of looking at it and was blindly following Naert. She was walking fast as if she was about to run, so I needed to jog/trot to keep with her. But even in a hurry, she was from time to time looking back and then I was staring at the ground to not let her see the way in which I was looking at her still not believing my eyes that I found her or rather she found me. She was checking that I was still behind making me feel that I was a burden to her.

 _Did she feel the same when I tried to adapt her to the wild?_

An advantage of walking fast was that we arrived at our destination quickly. We weren't there just yet but she told me that we were very close. But as we were moving closer and closer I started to, maybe not to hear because there weren't words or sounds but feel in the same way as hearing a wave of pain and feelings of lost hope. Strong fear was like a cloud floating above the place where we were heading.

"Naert? Are there things which are unique to fire type groups?" I asked, maybe there was nothing to worry about.

"Maybe it is a little more of fire and less of water but not anything which would need to be mentioned," she answered me seemingly oblivious to things which I sensed.

As we were even closer the air filled stinky odour of something that I couldn't clearly recognise. It was some mix of more than one odours and if I would be umbreon right now it would be possible to recognise each of them, but I wasn't and all that I could say about it was that it stank really badly. Naert noticed that too but it seems that she was more puzzled than disgusted, as I was.

Soon we entered very rocky part of a forest, but I wasn't sure if I could call it forest anymore as there was almost no trees around, I may say that there was a giant heap of smooth tawny stones formed into a hill in the middle of the forest. We were walking by the empty path between the high stones and piles of smaller rocks. Foul odour here become even more intense, I had a feeling that I could taste it by 'liking' the air. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw spots of something red between rocks. I stopped for a while I walked few steps into opposite direction to change my angle of seeing the red thing. From here I could see that the red blob on the ground was connected by a narrow path to something that was behind a corner of one of the rocks. I could only see something that looked like...a leg but only one, I wasn't close enough to see clearly what was behind the corner so I wasn't sure if there was really someone's limb. And I didn't feel any life by my psychic behind the rock so I guessed that no one was there... or no one alive.

That thought made my fur on my back stand up slightly and I quickly ran to Naert who already made some distance ahead of me.

"Are you sure that we are where we supposed to be," I questioned as I finally caught up to her.

"Yes, there is no need to worry, just one more corner and we meet with..." as we walked around one more corner she stopped in half breath seeing scene before us.

In the big place without roof made by rocks, were lying dozens of bodies of different fire types, from small ones like fennekin to giant charizard in the centre, everyone in deep lake of blood, as rock didn't absorb the red liquid. Bodies of the dead were devastated, smaller one were hard to recognise since sometimes even half of its body were missing and some of their limbs and others things which should be rather inside of the body were lying around.

But my interest caught creature at the opposite side of the room. It was visible that this creature was also dead, half of its head was a red bloated crooked bubble and its flank was cut across revealing white rib bones. His pose was intriguing, because that wasn't the pose in which someone could die. It was more like if some played with this body using it like a doll to make a scene. As I watched closely I came out to that creature was someday arcanine, but because of missing parts of his body, I wasn't sure. The arcanine was lying on his stomach as if he was resting keeping the head of charizard, only head, on his forepaws as some kind of trophy with a dead smile on his lipless muzzle.

"What happened here?" Naert said shakily looking around "Wha wha? Who?" she was about to cry and backed away from the scene, just to be far from the blood, and without a word turned and ran. She may know this pokemon, I wasn't chasing her. I knew that she need support now but there was more one thing to see, who did this. Rea and Naert described someone who was haunting me as powerful creature since he was lying now before me in the pond of blood and his head became with probably his arcanine friend a decoration of this group grave.

I walked to charizard's body and examined them, he had multiple cuts and bites almost on every inch of his body, there were deep and broad. His wings were completely missing and I couldn't find them. That means that he was fighting before he died, cut on his side. The enemy attacked from the left with claws, bite on the hand. He wanted to defend himself but got bitten, a wide wound across his back. His enemy was too fast for him and he leapt on his back, and finally bit his head off.

Then I moved to the arcanine, but there was one problem. Arcanine's body was missing. From the dramatic monument, only charizard's head left on the ground. I looked around but didn't see him.

He was dead, he couldn't just decide to go for a walk. But everything was showing that corpse that he really went on a walk.

 _Was I really that focused on this charizard that I missed resurrection two meters away from me?_

In the pond of the congealed blood was a path of prints, which could belong to arcanine as earlier I didn't saw them. Size also fitted arcanine's large paws. As I followed the prints which weren't to hard to find as the mystery creature, I wasn't believing that arcanine really stood up, went through the same which I and Naert came here. But there was a thing which started to be my fear. Why were these prints following Naert's scent?

But then it struck me, now I knew why I could so easily follow a scent, even if I was espeon right now with a bad sense of smell. I had smelled these odours earlier, in the city, while I found the strange mirror in the building where I was once kidnapped. And now I wasn't following just arcanine, it was a creature from distortion world which Giratina somehow possessed and sent here and which was now going for Naert. I immediately sped up as fast as I could, I couldn't lose her, not now after we met again, not ever!

 _Naert!_

I screamed in my mind, I tried to focus while running and try to locate her somehow with my psychic but that was useless, I didn't know how to use it.

 _Myron?_

Answered voice in my head, did I just said something by psychic? Was it telepathy? Not wasting time on wondering how this worked I screamed in my mind again.

 _Run!_

As I said it through my mind, I was overwhelmed by a wave of worry and fear. Not only via mind link but also of my own, she hadn't any chance to be faster than arcanine. I needed to think about something which could be helpful right now. These must be something that I could do, there always was.

But I had only psychic through my side, weak and untrained power. But maybe not completely useless. It was weak because I wasn't using it correctly.

The path of track become chaotically going between trees, and sometimes through fallen tree trunks. I guessed that it was where it catch up to Naert, but I didn't see her body yet so I still had hope.

The ground all around was burned and some small fire was still burning where the grass was thicker. And then I saw them, Naert was really tired, breathing heavy standing shakily on all fours, from her mouth was thick black smoke showing that she used a lot of fire moves and couldn't make more. A vastness of her fear seems to push me away. Before her was standing the arcanine, but he wasn't healed from wounds which I saw on him earlier. Part of his head was still missing and his side was ripped open. There was not possible that he could stay alive but he was staying as if he was completely fine. He noticed me, moving his only one ear in my direction as I wasn't silent as usually.

"Oh, look who is here," said deep, vibrating in the air voice of the arcanine. "Our hope of better tomorrow, I really was looking to meet you First One,"

 _First one? First where?_

"I don't remember that I heard about you," I answered him closing a distance trying to stand between him and Naert but he moved too, crossing my way. I didn't want to come too close to him so I stopped where I was.

"Because you don't, I just heard about you from Giratina. She was preying on you. How better than me you was when you were in Distortion World, how much important you were, and how stupid you were," it said, I saw that behind him Naert collapsed but still was conscious. From where I was I could see that she wasn't wounded or wounded that hard to be it visible from distance.

I started walking slowly in a circle around him trying to get between him and Naert but he followed me. Both of us were now orbiting around Naert, still keeping distance between us. Then the half dead arcanine laughed.

"So that is the reason! Because of some feeble creature, you turned away from a legendary!" he muttered it as if it was some poison. "So hopeless, how you can love a thing which will die because of you!"

"She won't die!" I almost screamed faster than I wanted. This made arcanine showing his sharp teeth...or was it a smile?

"She won't, are you saying? It seems that you don't know too much about your own existence," he was visibly having fun in making me angry. "You, the only one who left Distortion World, have an ability to curse things around you, did you ever think why? The energy of distortion is going through you all the time, going into a structure of this world changing it. You are a walking portal to distortion world."

"You are lying, you said that only I have this ability but there were no others! It was always only me!" I already lost control on my voice which started to sound insane even for me.

"Yes, it was. But being here you are making barrier between worlds weaker and weaker with every day. Giratina already can communicate with this world. And her promises, I can wish whatever I want, I just needed to do some of her orders. Like taking another's life obviously, your suffering will be as a bonus," he continued. "I can't kill you just yet, the barrier needs to be weaker and if you die all processes will stop; but I found it funny. I have only one dilemma, which one of you will suffer more, she when I make you suffer in pain? Or you when I kill and rape her on your view, an order would be random."

I couldn't take it anymore, I was shaking from the anger inside of me. I felt pain when I was gritting my teeth and desire to murder. He thought that because of some deal with Giratina he became a demon and enjoyed that thinking that now can do whatever he want. I'll show him, I'll show him what being a demon means.

I changed my walking direction straight at him, he also stopped and was visibly happy, grinning with his crooked teeth but didn't change his position still being turned flank to me.

 _Did our size difference make him think that I was not dangerous for him?_

Taking this as an advantage I sped up and leapt at him making scratch through his face and immediately jumping back to avoid his eventual counter. But he didn't move as an attack would never come. I saw that I left new red cuts on his face.

"Didn't you notice my wounds? Some new cuts won't change anything. That what I asked Giratina, I wanted to be invincible, that is the first part of her gift, a second I will earn when I end the fight with you. Not to mention your scratching is more like tickling," he said and finally moved. But he wasn't running, he just started walking, slowly approaching me. I wasn't waiting for him going for him again, jumping high, to leave new cuts on his left eye but this time he moved his head and I hit his shoulder. Then I noticed that I didn't feel any warmth from him when I touched him.

Not wasting time I ran in a circle going to his flank, I released my attack going under him and biting his neck as hard as I could. He didn't yell in pain but he tried to shake me off. And he succeeded, as my bite wasn't too hard. I managed to land on all four and by complete luck, landing between him and Naert.

 _Was he really already dead? Is it possible to kill too much mobile corpse?_

The fact that I was in espeon form also wasn't helpful, that form could be fast but claws and teeth were short, not able to make real harm to even smaller pokemon. The sun was close to the horizon but I couldn't depend changing form in the middle of the fight, it was still few hours before sunset.

As I was standing and contemplating how to kill something which seems to be dead, the arcanine's patience ran out and as he was standing he jumped at me flying almost whole distance between us with incredible acceleration.

I felt that I lost my ground when heavy paw struck me, scratching through my side, his long claws scrubbing on my ribs going to my neck. I landed few meters from the place where I was standing.

"Lasota!" Naert yelled but I wasn't listening and stood up but immediately fall again on the ground when a wave of pain fulfilled my mind.

"That was all? I am disappointed. Your yellow friend was harder effort to deal with and I hope she is ready for round two," taunted me arcanine. "It will be a pleasure to have some private time."

His last word lost its snide character and was replaced by surprise when I finally stood up, I was in great pain but I didn't want to show it standing as if nothing happened. The only thing which could show that I had any injury was a thick cloud of fumes around me spreading in every direction and following my every move.

"What would you do without this ability," asked my Kilian, who boasted how my ability was able to save me.

"Probably died long ago," I answered, my pain which now almost disappeared actually helped me. I stopped thinking about a thing which arcanine told me, about what he could do after I lose, now I could focus on the fight. I had to win and I knew how.

I focused my sight on arcanine but my mind on the ninetales behind me. Time seems to slow down, arcanine started running toward me but I knew that he won't manage to hit me in time. I foresaw that, it was completely new experience, the short vision didn't replace my sight but I saw them at the same time as realm. Strong emotion, I was thinking about Naert, our first meeting, places which we visited in these three years and nights which we had spent together.

It was fulfilling me, supplying my psychic, like a river supplying a millwheel. Random things started to fly, from the sand, to a pine cone or fallen leaves to the white and grey rock, fallen branch and devastated arcanine who was growling and scuffling in my invisible grasp, biting and scratching the air trying to free himself. Even my own healing smoke was swirling between other flying objects.

Arcanine was screaming but not from physical pain, that was his mind which was in pain as I pushed my mental paw ahead.

" _You won't do it, you couldn't use others elements than electricity, that how I created you,_ " I heard well know the voice of Giratina coming from arcanine's mind as something which I couldn't exactly identify started to leave his mind, this thing was dark and full of rage.

" _You won't take anyone more,_ " I send a mental message to this dark thing and this answered.

" _I will, your flareon friend will be next!_ " it answered me and disappeared, and with this all my focus. Flying parts of environment fallen to the ground in rain of things. Arcanine too, he fell on his side with his tongue drawn far from his mouth and this time when dark energy left him he was really dead.

I didn't even notice when I lied on the side but as I was about to get up I felt a powerful migraine and my sight become dark.

* * *

A pain, and noise, buzzing mixed with ringing, random voices somewhere in the background, it were things which fulfilled my mind after I woke up, not opening my eyes I guessed that it was still a day since I felt its rays on my side. I felt weird, my muscles didn't scream with the pain of exhaustion but I find it hard to move. I couldn't focus on any thought as images appeared and disappeared. I wasn't able to remember any of them even for a second. I was lying on my stomach and could feel soft grass under me, but I felt as if I was spinning in every possible direction.

Deep breath changed to harsh rasping as my throat was dry like a rock on the sunny day of summer, able to roast bugs if they stayed there too long. Every effort to move seemed to be pointless and out of reach. I felt as if my body was only a cover, prevent me from feeling every impulse from 'outside'. I lifted my eyelids as if it was some heavy gate of ones of humans entrances.

Yes, it was still a day but I didn't recognise my surrounding, it was some clearing full of short bushes that if I stood up I would be in the same high as them. Bushes were full of leaves but there were no fruits. The only sight that there were fruits on them in the past were broken stems.

I hardly moved my head into left to find that I was at the bank of the lake, as I saw water I immediately felt that I needed to drink, I desperately needed to drink. I crawled to the lake and put my whole head into the cold water.

Cold on my head was redemptive as my migraine became much easier to tolerate. I drink hungrily as if there would but no more water in my life and stopped when I started to suffocate, lying flat on the lake bank gasping for air. When I catch my breath I rested my head on forepaws. I saw that my paws changed their colour to blue but shortly after they returned to lavender. I was close to change.

"I see that you are awake," I heard a female voice somewhere from the left. "At first I wanted to thank you for saving me," said ninetales coming in my sight "But you have a lot to explain Lasota. Try to lie to me and I will be worst than that-thing. Where and when did you meet Myron?!"

"Myron? But..?"

"When you warned me I clearly felt him and later seeing what you did fighting I am sure that you are far from being a novice psychic and you could fake his appearance," said Naert angrily "But you had to have met him earlier. Tell me about it!"

I saw that the sun behind her was hiding behind the horizon and only half of it was still visible. That meant for me that I couldn't stay as espeon to long. I hadn't anywhere to hide, I already start to feel weaker and weaker in my espeon form and needed to force it to didn't change just yet.

"Okay, okay you want to find him right? Just look then," maybe holding my secrets all this time was a mistake? Maybe if I would tell her at the start about it anything bad wouldn't happen? But how she could react? Would she accept me how I really am? I decided to give it a try. I really wanted her back to my side, her twinkle in her eyes while she was looking at me, a blanket of her tails, pokemon precious to me, I wanted to be back with my mate, just like in the old days. I hadn't much time if I wanted her to believe me I had to change into leafeon before the moon would change me to umbreon. In hurry but also without whipping movements I moved to the bushes making with them contact forcing myself for faster change.

"Hey wait, what you are doing?" asked a little surprised Naert as the changes started, forced by me they were much faster than usually. And after few second I was standing before her as a grass type. I felt enormous relief that I lost connection to my psychic power as my mind was much clearer now. Moving my forehead leaf at the back of my head I looked at Naert.

"I am Myron,"


	7. Chapter 7 'Reunion'

As I stood before Naert in my favourite form, silence filled the air between us. She was staring at me with solidified face expression of some mix of angry and surprised, that I wasn't sure what could I expect, happiness or rather a flamethrower. I didn't know what should I do now, no matter how I wanted her back my explanation would be pointless. That wasn't something that could be forgotten or ignored, I was just different, changed. I could depend only on that she would believe and...

"Myron? But how?" these word seems to escape her mouth since her ears perked as it was some unexpected sound.

"I... I always was like that," I said, it was hard to focus on speaking while so many though were rushing through my mind. It was hard to say that I was lying to her so long, it was hard to think that I really lied to her. "I wanted to tell you that earlier but, but I couldn't. Fear that you would think about me different then you were, was, I just couldn't."

I lose eye contact with her as I sat down and stared at the ground. Was I really that bad to be afraid to say it? But I did it now and it didn't make me feel better.

"Please, say something," I asked when my stress reached a higher level, my heart was beating extremely fast as I was in uncertainty.

"Sorry," she said silent and I immediately looked up to see if she was about to leave, she wasn't. "Sorry that I left you, that I didn't return when I had a chance. Forgive me that I stayed blind to your problems."

She stood up and walked closer to me.

"When you tried to tell me about that I was too afraid. You were ideal for me, you taught me how to live. You shared with me your home, knowledge, cared about me, fed me when I was hungry and defended when I was scared. When you started telling about distortion world and Giratina I was too afraid. I was afraid that life which we had would end, that we wouldn't be happy anymore, that you could be someone different than I thought you were.

"But only after some time passed, I realised how much I hurt you that my run couldn't prevent changes and learned that no matter how different you would be, you still will be the same pokemon which I met. That there is now my time to support you just like you were support for me," her voice broke down at the end of the sentence and single tear went through her face. I was astonished, she was thinking that it was her false, that she hurt me while it was me and my lies.

"You shouldn't blame yourself if I would tell you at..."

"Ah shut up and come here," she cut me off and I felt that invisible force throw me ahead in her soft and tight hug. At first surprised I enjoyed the touch burrowing my head in her fur on the neck and closing my eyes.

"So you believe me? Don't you think that I made some illusion as espeon?" I asked didn't let her go just as she didn't let me.

"You wouldn't be able, it passed thirty years, some young espeon wouldn't be able to deceive me. I don't speak about it but I became really good in psychic," she spoke in my ear. "So, do you forgive me?"

"It was really..."

"Don't argue whose fault it was, just forgive me please," she breathed in my ear.

"Okay, I forgive you, how could I not?" I whispered as I opened my eyes. I saw that new tears appeared on her face and that she had her eyes closed just like me second ago. I wanted to wipe her tears with my leaf but quickly found out that I hadn't any leaves and there is a weak yellow glow around me. Not having leaves I licked her tears and she patiently waited as I was doing that. Then she rested her head on my neck and I did the same. I didn't know how much time had passed as we were enjoying each other's presence but it seems that both of us were tired after this day. Still together we laid side by side and I felt as Naert warm tails covered me.

Before we fall asleep she opened her eyes once more time.

"Is it still you?" she asked as she noticed my different appearance.

"Yes it is still me," I answered, ready to fall asleep at any moment. She smiled and rested her head close to mine, closing her eyes.

* * *

I woke up before sunrise but I felt well rested, as I opened my eyes I met Naert's eyes already staring at me.

"Hello sleepyhead," she greeted me.

"Wasn't that me who was waking up earlier?" I said rubbing my head through her neck, it was so warm and soft that I could fall asleep again without any effort. It was the thing which I was missing so long, some warm at night, someone who would be worth my wakings.

"A lot of time had passed and things changed," she stated as she stood up and stretched. "So could we talk about things which you wanted to say me back then? Why are you umbreon or espeon while I remember you only as leafeon? What is your real name, Lasota or Myron?"

As I remained lying down, she really wanted me to talk about it. I didn't need to force any hard speech, all I needed was just answer her questions.

"I actually can change into every eeveelution, all that I need is contact with each element, plants to leafeon, darkness to umbreon and the sun for espeon," I started my explanation. "You remember that arcanine from yesterday? He was talking about distortion world and Giratina. I was probably born there, I not actually sure but my latest memory is from that different world. Young eevees evolve into the way in which they train themselves, I actually never evolved but I gained an ability which changes my appearance depends on my environment.

"But it is not completely transformation into a different type, I can't breathe fire as flareon or shooting ice as glaceon, psychic as espeon I learned recently as my internal changes still progress. There is also a problem with me as jolteon as I can't control myself in that form."

She was listening patiently not breaking eye contact, it seemed that she really wanted to understand me and wasn't scared.

"What about the name?" she reminded me after I paused.

"Myron and Lasota," I repeated my two names "Both of them are faked, I just named myself after them as I don't want to use my real one. After I left Distortion World I decided that I won't be Giratina's servant and tried to forget everything about her. She gave me a name...and it was my first name so I guess it is my real name now. But I really don't want using or remember this one. "

"So what should I name you?" she asked and broke eye contact looking around through the wall of bushes.

"Whatever you want, but last time I was using Sinar," I answered trying to find out on what she was looking in the bushes. Then she stood up and walked closer to them. I saw that on this one bush before Naert were still fruits but after a moment they fly off the twigs moved by psychic and disappeared in ninetales mouth. She didn't change too much.

"What were you doing all this time. You said that you became good at the psychic, someone taught you or are you self-taught?" I asked also standing up just as the sun appeared on the horizon.

"First five years I was just blindly wandering where my feet took me but it wasn't a journey which we had together. I was just moving from place to place without any purpose to live. Then I became desperate to have a goal and I let human to catch me," she paused for a while as if to gather thoughts. Here I regretted that I wasn't espeon so I could look what was in her head. "I don't know what I was thinking then, that I could live as if I would never meet you? I didn't enjoy my time as trainer's pokemon as I enjoy now. Before you showed me the wilderness I didn't enjoy my trainer at all, but I couldn't run away. With time I get used to it, to eating dry food, to obeying commands, to fighting in an arena. I spent like that ten years or even more, I am not sure. This trainer was travelling to different places in the world and it is possible that I missed some winters in my calculations. The only advantage of that was that I was training psychic these years. He finally becomes bored of the journey.

"Then he returned to his home and I get a lot of free time which I needed to spend somehow. So I started thinking about my future, ninetales can live thousand years so I would be probably given from generation to generation of this trainer. I didn't want to become an object and repeat trainer's journey again and again until I die. Then I started to feel very guilty that I left you but I thought that it was too late, that you already died and ...wait, how are you still alive? Domesticated eeveelutions usually live sixty years but those in the wilderness have a shorter life. I mean, I knew that you are still alive only thanks to psychic that's why I still had a hope to look for you. But you don't even get old, only a little gaunter than you were, just if your time has stopped."

 _Am I_ _gaunt_ _?_

I never paid any attention to my appearance, maybe only to leaves as leafeon but besides that, it was completely indifferent to me. But now as Naert pointed it became for a moment most important thing, only for a moment then I also noticed that I wasn't umbreon any longer and changed to leafeon not even thinking about it, it was luck that I didn't change to espeon while I was distracted. I couldn't imagine myself trying to clean my leaves, flippers, spikes, and a lot of fur of every of my form every day nor that I knew how I should do it.

"It is just one of my changes, I don't know how long I can live but it seems that I am not getting older. But isn't it better? You won't outlive me and we could meet again," I said and leant on her side once again, I couldn't get tired of her.

"Is there anything more that should I know about you? You can say it, I won't be scared the second time," she said calmly. It was one more thing.

"Yes, it is one more thing. You probably noticed that there is no sight of injuries which arcanine gave me," I said presenting my flank and neck where arcanine's claw met my body. I would probably look just like this arcanine if I couldn't heal myself.

"So he really hurt you? I thought that I foresaw that since you stood up," she worried carefully examine me.

"Yes but I can heal my wounds very fast and even these which should kill me," I thought for a moment if should I present this like I did to Rea but decided that won't be necessary. Then I reminded what I heard while I was fighting arcanine, that Rea would be next who Giratina planned to made her servant. I didn't know what promise could lure Rea to thing like that but I barely knew her, maybe she had some wish which Giratina could use.

"We need to go back," I slurred, still deep in thoughts.

"Back? Where? Don't you mean that place where so many fire types died?" groaned Naert.

"No I mean to the eeveelutions pack where you were heading earlier, it is possible that something bad will happen there," I explained, the problem was that I didn't know where we actually were. I didn't recognise this environment. "You know the way, right?"

"Yeah sure," she replied and pointed to the north. _How did I even appear on this bank of the lake?_

"I dragged you here since you fall unconscious after the fight," Naert answered on my never spoken question.

"I didn't say anything," I perplexed.

 _Yes I know,_ I heard strange but at the same time familiar voice in my head.

I looked at her weirdly and she answered with a smile, it was very weird to have someone who read my mind.

"Didn't you say that you need to focus really hard to be able to read other's mind?" I asked reminding her short psychic lesson.

"I did but you were espeon then, it is hard to read the mind of psychic as they are complicated, now you are like an open book," said ninetales still smiling as we started our walk around the lake to Rea's pack. "Who is this Rea anyway? Some friend of yours?"

"Didn't you read this already?" I questioned.

"Reading through and memories isn't the same, thoughts just fly around. It is much harder to read someone's memories and I would do it but it is always a risk that after that you could forget some of them become crazy or even get some permanent disadvantage," she proved again to me that psychic didn't have any secrets for her. "And I don't want to replace every talk just by reading what you have on your mind. So who is this Rea?"

"It is flareon, I was helping her to get to her pack safely. Someone ordered her to catch me, which she did, but later they tried to kill her to keep her silent, so she freed me and I helped her...with her problem," I gave her short version what happened and stopped when I was about to tell her earlier events. How I could explain that I was killing more than two times per week everyone who I met around my mountain, that with killing I tried to fulfil my time which could I spend suffering thinking which I lost.

 _You don't need to say it if it is too hard for you but if you want to share it with me just think about it, I will listen._

At first, I wanted to decline maybe even lie that nothing important happened but it wouldn't free me. These things would return sooner or later, so as we were heading to the north I started to think. From the very start, training for Giratina, suffering and pain of changes, my fear during that, a day when I left Distortion World, first prey, second and third, I didn't remember next it melted with each other, it was so many of them. Day after day until the moment when I was about to destroy Distortion World barriers but I decided otherwise. Next stage of my life as I tried to live as peacefully as my hunger allows me that, I was being of Giratina, legendary of death, every kill, scream and fear on this world was like music to her ears. While I was memorising my past I was looking at Naert, she wasn't commenting she was only looking ahead and only her face expression and frequency of wagging of her tails were changing as I was releasing new and new parts of my past. Not everything was completely new to her since I told her about some of my adventures as we were together but now she could see it as a whole.

It took me half of the day of going through the good and bad memories, half of the day of speechless talk but I finally shared everything that I could remind at this moment and waited on what she would say.

"You did a lot of bad things," she finally said and I felt that I was sinking in myself. What would she do now, could she hate me? Be scared of me? Or leave me again!? What if she...

 _Stop._

I noticed that as I was distracted by my though she looked straight at me.

"Myr...Sinar, you killed more than once, but you were forced to do so, you had to choose, become predator or die in hunger. You chose like everyone would. I won't leave you again. I will help to go through this, we will go through this together, starting from helping Rea and ending at Giratina, then we may return to our secret valley, to the den under the willow and live there as long as our long lives manage to keep us in this world," she spoke and my fears immediately disappeared replaced by familiar warm feeling in my chest. I really had someone on who I could depend on, who loved me and who I loved.

She was leading me again, not that I had a problem with going behind her, but following someone wasn't something to which I was used to doing. I couldn't recognise anything around just yet but trees and bushes started to become familiar to the ones I saw when I split up with Rea. Light green leaves on deep brown twigs of medium sized trees of broad branches. The sun made it halfway through the sky covered in sporadic white clouds.

We weren't walking by any forest path but also nothing was standing on our way. The ground was covered by mosses, small twigs, and leaves which fell to the ground probably even before the winter making the ground very soft and comfortable to walk. I wasn't sure if Naert was still listening to my thoughts so I tried not to think. It was actually pleasant feeling after so long time spent as espeon. But maybe if I was trying thinking about nothing then Naert felt that I was trying to hide something, not that I am enjoying the moment.

 _No, that's fine, if you would lie or try to hide something, I would feel it too._

Now I could be sure that she was still listening to my thoughts and if I remember correctly, she said that she needs to put some effort to do that since she wasn't psychic type but fire with...what exactly? Psychic possibilities? Was it some after-type?

"Ninetales are actually weird if it comes to thing what we can do. We are as fire-type but we don't have problems to learn things of different types like a ghost, dark or psychic. However, I focused only fire and psychic," she spoke.

"That is almost like my type changing," I said surprised by her possibility, maybe if we would have some more time I ask her to teach me some fire thing as espeon or if my changes would be still progressing also as flareon.

 _Sure, that would be fun._

"But you are quite good as espeon, who taught you?" she added in normal speech, I didn't want to say it but her psychic was getting me tired and confused.

 _Oh, sorry._

"No one actually, I had few sporadic situations when I tried to use my psychic power but generally I failed every attempt to use it, I don't know exactly what happened back then in this fight, I just tried and 'poof' it happened. I doubt that I can repeat that," I answered her, now really trying to don't add any internal comment, I found it hard to stop my thoughts.

"That seems that both of us were lucky that this happened, this arcanine beat me quite fast, I last time, when I was beaten like that, was... well it was you who beat me when I was still vulpix. Since then I didn't lose a fight," she said, taking pride pose. Every time when she did that, I had a feeling that time had stopped for a second, as if it was a dream in reality or some kind of hypnosis which pinned my eyes to her and blocked my mind to doing anything different than just looking.

 _I wouldn't be doing that if it wouldn't be effective._

I snapped out as she giggled; but I wasn't shy to look away or to blush. We weren't some young lovers who may struggle to admit their attraction, and her sight was something that was making me happy.

"So, since you can be leafeon, espeon and umbreon then...,"

"And every other eeveelution," I added.

"...right, But then which one is umm, your true appearance? I mean, you need to have some base form from which you transform to different," she inquired. It seems that my ability took her attention but that wasn't an everyday thing.

"Eevee," I answered faster than I thought. She immediately stopped and quickly turned to me.

"What?!" she squealed. Was it something wrong with that? Did I say something that she didn't want to hear? "You need to show me! Eevees are so adorable and cute..."

"NO! Please, everything but not 'cute', it is weird to be called like that," I said very ashamedly as I lowered my ears instinctively and tried to hide behind me leaves. I didn't like my primal form too much, it was gathering of weakness. I felt defenceless as eevee, completely depending on my environment. "I may show you some day. But even then don't call me... like that."

"Uhm, okay, I am sure that it's not that bad as you may things it is but would it mean that you didn't evolve?" Maybe should I show her second part of my past, not only things which I did in this world but also the thing which happened to my in Distortion World?

"Well, there was a time when I tried to discover how much about myself as I could since I didn't know my body and I was curious," I said. "As you know evolution always takes this few second and it seems that I stuck in this process, just evolving and devolving over and over again in the same moment. Why does my type is changing depending on the environment?It's some replacement for real evolution.

"Add to this Giratina's manipulations like exposing young me to strange violet clouds in Distortion World, changing gravity and some opposition of concept of matter. I never discovered what the last one thing was, it is something that Giratina can control and it is something different to everything that we know," I explained to Naert as we continued our walk through the forest, now side by side.

Antimatter is opposition to the matter, even if there was a void somewhere it wouldn't look as empty as antimatter: a thing that was absorbing everything in its surroundings. It was like a hole without a bottom, what falls into there never comes back, only Giratina was able to use it, I had it inside. That was a thing that made my existence possible just like it was in this arcanine, making him still alive even if he shouldn't be alive. That was this dark mass of rage and hate, of deepest nothing. It was hard to imagine completely nothing, the world around taught us that there is always something, even if I would try to imagine 'nothing' maybe as darkness then it won't be the same as antimatter, where even darkness doesn't exist.

 _Now you try to bore me to death with this wandering? I got it, void of some sort._

"Um sorry. I just can't get used to your..." _Seeing? Hearing?_ "...knowing what I think, I have a feeling that you are just showing your psychic," I said.

"A little," she spoke, " I was wondering, how were you able to hide all these abilities from me by whole three years, I remember that even in the night you were leafeon and I never caught you murdering some pokemon."

 _Murdering, that sounds bad,_ I thought.

"Well, that wasn't easy to pay attention to always be in contact with some plants but I managed to do it. About food, I could live these month or two just by sun and water but it was exhausting. Sometimes I was sneaking out for a day or two with some excuse," I said, "It was usually when you started to smell too good for me."

"What? You were thinking about me as a food?!" she said surprised.

"No! I would never do that!" I immediately regret what I said. "It was just a smell," I added innocently. I shouldn't be joking like that, now every time when I say that I like her smell she would remind me of this and won't take it as a compliment. What if she would start to think that I couldn't control myself and try to hurt her. I was more than once in great hunger but it never became anything more than a feeling, something that could take control on me.

"You keep forgetting that I can hear your thoughts but that calmed me. I will try not reminding that," Naert said with her usual pleasant and little seductive voice which she used to use when she was talking with me. I luxuriated in her voice as familiar feeling in my chest appeared and grew. Firstly I was happy that I could feel it again, but then I started to feel weird since the feeling wasn't pleasant in anything in which it should, it was growing inside of my chest and started to become painful blocking my breath. I coughed trying to clear my throat but it didn't help, my breath changed to gasping.

"What is wrong?" Naert worried seeing that I slowed down trying to throw out invisible thing from my throat coughing and rasping fighting for oxygen. Naert quickly walked behind me and hit me few times with her paw in my back trying to help me. But that didn't help and being already weakened I fall to the ground because of the strength which she put into her paw.

"Don't give up, I'll try using psychic," Naert stuttered scared but I knew that it won't help. Nothing was in my throat, it was something in my chest which was making me a pain of agony blocking my breath. The pain wasn't visible to Naert since I couldn't scream, only writhing on the ground, kick the air around and choke.

The feeling disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, clearing my throat. I breathed deeply and went into another wave of coughs but now I could breathe. Naert was standing above me waiting as I caught my breath.

"What was that? Are you ill? I thought that you were going to die," she bombarded me with questions looking at me with worry in her eyes just as my breath became calmer. I started standing up and she immediately helped m with her muzzle.

"Tghaa," I tried to say but my voice didn't return to me yet. "That was nothing," I finally said harshly. I wanted to explain what exactly happened but I needed a while before my voice returned to me. I looked around, maybe it would be something to drink what could help, it wasn't.

"You can't say that was nothing. You almost died here, I, I don't know what I would do if you would die in front of me. Please tell me is it anything what could I do?" she asked.

 _Just wait a moment,_ I thought, hoping that she was listening to my thoughts. She nodded. After few minutes of rest and clearing my throat I thought that I could speak finally.

"Naert," I said mainly to try my voice but also to take her attention, it wasn't necessary since she was paying all her attention to me as if I was about to suffocate again. "I told you that I was changed and my changes are still progressing, that's how it looks like."

"So, that was normal for you? That is terrible! How often does this happen?" she said that fast that it took me a while to understand what she just spoke.

"Actually, not too often; my last one was a week ago but it was the first one since I left Distortion World," I answered, quickly calculating days when I and Rea ran from ghosts pokemon horde.

"I hope that won't be too often. You said that it changed you somehow but you still are leafeon with normal appearance," she spoke.

"Each change gives me a new ability. Last change allowed me to use psychic as espeon, this one well we need to find out. It didn't expand my skills as leafeon that for sure since I don't feel a difference, I doubt it would be something form espeon form again and for sure that wasn't for me as jolteon," I said trying to guess what could it be.

"Why no jolteon?" she asked puzzled. "What so special in this form?

"It is probably a way of evolution in which I would go if I would be 'normal' eevee. I can use electricity as jolteon but can't control it, it is quite useful in combat since is very powerful but generally it is more problems with than benefits," I explained. Also, it was hard to find electricity in nature, only storms had some of it and other electric pokemon which I didn't meet too often.

It wasn't long when we stood at the edge of the familiar looking clearing with tall stones at the opposite side. I actually wasn't sure how I was supposed to meet with Rea, should I just walk in the pack, yelling her name or better would be to ask someone where she could be. We walked between the stones and we weren't walking long before we found a sleeping umbreon in the middle of the narrow patch. The umbreon, even sleeping, was strong and bulky and Rea's snoring was nothing compared to theirs. I had a feeling that I can sense vibrations of the air when the umbreon was snoring.

"I guess that's a guard," Naert said unsure.

"Let's find out," I answered and poked the back of the umbreon. He wheezed but didn't wake up.

 _Why is a nocturnal guarding during the day?_ I thought.

I poked him once again, this time much harder.

"What?" he yawned angrily as he opened his eyes and stood up, I thought that when he was lying he was big but when he stood up I had a feeling as if I changed to eevee. Even the houndoom I met earlier, Gloim, was shorter than him. Now I could understand why he was a guardian.

"Oh, hello!" he added completely ignoring me, speaking straight to Naert, I immediately didn't like him for the way in which he said it. It irritated me.

 _Someone is jealous!_ I heard Naert's mental voice.

If it was how being jealous feels like then yes I was. I lifted my leaf-tail and blocked umbreon's view on Naert, who was taking his attention.

"Hey, it is me with who you are talking," I snapped. "We are looking for a flareon, female, her name is Rea and I know that she belongs to this pack, do you know where is she?"

"What was her name?" umbreon asked obviously paying me much less attention than I thought he was looking at my tail as if he wanted to make a hole in that just by looking at it.

"Focus. R-e-a," I taunted saying this letter by letter as if I was about to explain something that he couldn't understand, now I had his full attention.

"You are not from this pack," he noticed still not answering my question. I would take him as dumb not able to make proper conversation but his voice tone and sight were telling me otherwise.

"No I am not, we are just looking for Rea," I said, emphasising 'we'. Then I thought that maybe I wasn't that much different than others, defending a mate was a normal thing.

" _Just wait until this umbreon challenges you, in the name of normality,_ " Kilian remarked.

I hoped that wouldn't happen. Not that I was scared, it was just that he was from Rea's pack, he was also eeveelution, and I still had unchecked changes, so I didn't know what I could do and what I couldn't do. Changes were not always adding a thing, sometimes was just replacing or deleting some ability. I remember once I could change a colour of my umbreon's rings but with time I lost that ability.

"She is not here," he answered me shortly. "And as you do not belong to this pack I can't let you in," it seems that he wanted to play my game as he put more accent on 'you'.

"If she is not here then I don't need to enter, but where did she go?" I hoped that she wasn't already kidnapped by Giratina.

"She was ill from some...weird illness and she went with two of her friends to find a cure," he answered me and now without any wickedness or he just couldn't find where to put it.

"Thanks," I said and turned to walk away, Naert who was all the time standing behind me followed me. I was looking at a corner of my eye if she looked back at umbreon. To my happiness, she didn't.

"I would say that you don't need to be infatuated with me but I think I like it," she purred in my ear as we made some distance from the entrance and its guardian.

I wasn't sure if I liked it, this umbreon really irritated me but fact that I found another normal thing in me made me feel good. But why did I get angry so fast? Was it just the way he spoke 'hello' or maybe his much more showy stance?

I saw that Naert was smiling, probably reading my thoughts but she didn't comment on them.

"So, we are about to find this flareon but she wasn't where we thought she would be. What now?" asked Naert as we stopped after wall of bushes which were separating a clearing from the rest of the forest. I actually wasn't sure how we could find her, looking for track and scent was some way to find her but Naert wasn't probably good at that...

 _No, I am not._

... and I could do it only as umbreon during the night as my dark-type form has a much more sensitive nose.

"Maybe if you would teach me this searching by psychic technique then maybe I would be able to find her," I suggested. Though I wasn't keen

to return to my espeon form, it was the only thing which came to my mind.

"I could try to teach you but I don't know it very well myself. I mean, one of the pokemon of my former trainer tried to teach me but I ran away before I learned that so you might say that I know only half of this," she said, it was visible that it wasn't easy for her that she couldn't do something, her old pride in the way. "Maybe this idea with you as umbreon would be better? Not much of the day left so we can rest now and start looking for her with the nightfall."

"Okay, it seems that is the only option," I accepted her suggestion looking around with a hope that maybe I would see some more visible track but it was pointless. I didn't even know when Rea left and because of my irritation, I forgot to ask about it.

"Should I go ask the guard umbreon for directions?" Naert asked with a smirk.

"No, smell will be enough," I said.


	8. Chapter 8 'The darkness night'

Twilight came suddenly. Even if an hour ago the sun seemed to be high in the sky, it hid behind the horizon fast, leaving the landscape in the deep darkness. The moon wasn't visible in the only partly clear sky. Darkness was quickly working with my genes, changing me into my umbreon form.

Me and Naert were lying in a small place between two trees which root was long enough to intertwine with each other, surroundings was lit up in a weak yellow colour of my ring's glow. I should be asleep now, but I knew that I would be awake the full night as I couldn't sleep. I wasn't sure why, maybe I just wasn't tired, maybe because it was still too early for me to sleep or maybe because Naert forgot to cover me in her fluffy blanket, or because of these glowing ring which I saw in every possible position in which I could rest my head.

No matter what the reason, I stayed wide awake, long time staring at on some random leaf in tree crown and gnawing at a stick which I found nearby. Maybe gnawing a stick could be considered as a childish behaviour but some pokemon species just liked doing that in every age, they just needed to use its teeth one something others discharge their nerves. I wasn't sure why I was doing that, was it typical for this eeveelution? I didn't know, I didn't spend enough time with them to notice that but every time when I had to just lie somewhere and there were some good sticks around, I was gnawing them.

Not every stick was a good stick, most of them were bad. If a stick would be too wet it would be hard to bite it but when a stick is to dry, it would be destroyed too fast. Also, size was important or even most important. Inexperienced pokemon may think that tree can be good stick to bite and quickly find how wrong there were, I personally was choosing sticks of my front legs length but since each my form had a little different length of leg I was making my choices approximately, as eevee I was obviously choosing smaller sticks but there was one more my most irritating chose, thickness of a stick. As umbreon, I needed a much thicker one as my jaws were stronger but as espeon or leafeon, I needed to choose more delicate sticks to still enjoy the process of biting.

But the stick was not what was bothering me, rather my unexpected reunion with Naert. I was thinking. Where we could be now if I said everything on the first day when we met. Maybe then we could live peacefully together, still walking from place to place through this world returning to the valley to our den under willow for winter, or maybe we wouldn't be even friends.

For now, it looked that she accepted my differences as if it was nothing, just another pokemon ability. Or maybe she was only acting like that? Maybe she didn't want to sadden me or she did that only because she knew me as a friend. But was it important? Maybe shouldn't I try to guess why she acted like that and simply enjoy it for what it was? It was an enticing thought, but I felt as if I was just skipping something, maybe something important.

I remember that Rea also took my form changes quite calmly, she was scared at first but with time she got used to it. She even offered me to stay in her pack, which was an interesting offer but also dangerous for the rest of hr pack. Staying too long in her pack could have an effect: the energy of Distortion World which still was around me would start to change other eeveelutions to...I wasn't sure what. Creatures similar to me? Which just had some of my attributes or completely new ones? What if the illness which Rea got and went looking for a cure for...was because of me? I doubted it, though I tried to keep a distance from her so that nothing bad would happen.

I didn't need to be afraid of Naert, if I would curse her it would be already visible; it was actually only by luck that my curse wasn't working on her. Maybe it was some other ninetales thing? I knew almost nothing about her species, I could only guess why it was like this. The only way to find out if it was ninetales thing was to spend some time with other ninetales but I doubted that I will do it, as long as I lived I met only one.

How beautiful it would be free from all these powers and different world, they were useful but usually only in problems created by having them. But there was only my wonder, thoughts about which I didn't think too much.

I stood up and walked closer to Naert, for a moment I thought how I should wake her up, for sure not in the way which I woke up Rea. I moved the glowing ring on my ear close to her eye, it wasn't long when she opened her eyes and almost immediately closed them, yellow light wasn't intense but it was the only one light here able to blind someone, especially from such a short distance.

"Wake up, it is night already," I said trying to say it kindly. After a while of hesitating, Naert yawned lengthily and stood up, it was clearly visible that she didn't want to be awake yet, fighting to not fall asleep with every blink of her eyes.

"It is so dark that I am not sure if I have my eyes open or closed," she said as she looked somewhere on the opposite to me, direction. I increased the glow of my rings but that wasn't very helpful, it was as if darkness around was gobbling every light. The darkness seemed to be heavy as if it was some dense smoke enveloping the whole environment. Even my vision, very good at seeing in the dark, was failing on longer distances, which was rather untypical and made me fell bad as I was used to seeing everything.

"Yeah, it's dark," I agreed, I looked at the sky with a hope that maybe the weather had a chance to get better. To my surprise I didn't see anything but darkness above, there were no stars.

"Isn't that good for you? You are dark-type right now in darkest you feel better, or it wasn't working like that? There is nothing stronger in the night then dark-types, right?" she asked. I thought for a while what should I answer, was that night really made me feel better? For now, I felt worried, maybe because I didn't see as good as I usually was or maybe because of something different.

"Maybe," I answered blankly. "I hope that it won't be hard to find this scent, something bad is in the air," I added as I walked few steps ahead and lowered my nose to the ground, sniffing rapidly and from time to time bursting the air through me nose to make a space for new scents I started wandering through the forest followed by Naert who tried to stay in my light, because of that she was keeping very close to me. Her scent was mixing with other forest's scent but I didn't want to tell her to back off. I was glad that she was close when I wasn't sure about the safety of our surroundings.

I could sense a scent which I was looking for, but it was weak, that meant that somewhere here was a path of Rea's scent but I needed to find it, I was smelling only parts cared by the wind. I was blindly looking, I didn't know from which direction her scent could come, it could be a day or two since she was walking through this forest. I was trying to cover as much of ground as I could, walking in a chaotic slalom, almost bumping into things in my way as I was following only my nose, not looking what was ahead. Sometimes it seemed that I found it as the scent was becoming stronger and stronger, only to be dissipated and replaced by another one or to disappear without any sight. My irritation grew when newer and newer paths led me to nothing.

Time was passing quickly as we were going deeper and deeper into the forest, further and further from known regions in the darkness surrounding us, interrupted only by the soft light of my umbreon's rings, heightening the sense of tension in the silence. Silence was disturbed only by our breathing, the rhythmic breathing of mine and calm and silent breathing of Naert; and our steps in forest ground, covered by small twigs grown in the wet grass, but I could hear her only because how close she was.

"Sinar," she whispered in my ear but in silence in which forest around was rapt, it seemed to be like screaming noise, not possible to miss by anyone around. "Do you have anything?"

I was actually just following another path of scent with a hope that this one could lead us to something. I stopped and lifted my head from the ground but didn't turn to her, I didn't want to lose this track so now all I needed was to lower my head again. That wasn't needed she was close enough to hear me without effort.

"I am not sure, Rea's scent was spread around by the wind, I am following only stronger paths of this scent but I am not completely sure if this is the right one," I whispered back, and lowered to the ground again. It was easy to think about sleep right now, complete silence and deep darkness seemed to be perfect for sleep also I had a feeling that ground under my paws was incredibly soft as if inviting me to lay somewhere.

Then a breath which was keeping me company above my right ear disappeared, I looked back and saw that Naert stopped just at the edge of yellow light, asleep but still standing. That was weird, since moment ago she was talking to me fully awake without any sign of being tired. I tried to remember where I stopped with tracking and walked to Naert examining her as I didn't believe that she could fall asleep right now. Her head was lowered to the ground but tails were still up as she was usually keeping them during a walk, her eyes were closed.

"Naert?" I asked her but there was no reaction. For a moment I also had inescapable desire to fall asleep but I shook my head, there was no time for this. I licked Naert in her nose and this time the reaction was instant. She jumped rapidly looking and turning haphazardly around, finally stopping in front of my face. I remember the first time when I woke her up like this, it was few weeks since we met, it was always a very effective way to wake her up but for some unknown reason, she didn't like it.

"What was that?" she asked fully awake again, licking her own nose.

"You fall asleep in the middle of walking, are you tired? We can stop for a while if you need to but I thought that you slept during the day." I said as I returned to the path of smell and with frustration, I found that the scent was gone. Then I heard my own deep growl from the back of my throat, I immediately stopped. I just lost track nothing more, there were no needs for growls but I still felt anger and frustration. These feelings were different as if it weren't mine and I was just looking at them somewhere from aside.

"No I am fine!" she said angrily as if my question irritated her. "Did you find anything finally?"

I didn't remember if she was ever angry at me but now she hadn't any reasons to be now, maybe she was really tired?

"Uh, no I actually lost our track be-" I bit my tongue before I said that was because of her sleep, from where these thoughts were?

"Do you even know where we are?" she huffed.

"Uh, no," I admitted.

"Great so now we are completely lost because of some also-lost, ill flareon, why do you even care about her? Has she something that I don't have? Is she better than me?" I was even more puzzled, better than she? How could anyone be better and more precious for me then Naert? But Naert before me completely didn't behave like Naert which I knew, she was yelling at me making me her target of frustration and anger.

"Better than you? What do you mean? We are looking for Rea to save her from Giratina," I said as calm as I could, paying more attention to words which I used.

"Yeah, sure, Giratina. Legendaries do not exist Sinar. I am leaving, maybe with that Rea you won't have that many problems to climb on her back in some beautiful night like with me," she yelled, turned, and walked through the forest hiding behind the bushes. I was completely confused, but her words were hurting me.

 _No, something had to have happened. Naert would never say anything like that, that was because of this night, something bad was here, yes the air for sure it was just something with the air,_ I thought.

I was about to follow Naert when before me appeared a creature I had never seen before. I jumped back from the shadowy figure, from its top as if it was a smoke was billowing long white plume under which was one single eye, shining like a small blue sun. The night sounded a creepy chortle and it took me a while to notice that chortle was coming from that creature before me.

"Beautiful, wasn't it? Just one short dream," it said. Its voice sounded like a scream of many tortured beings, like the scratching of ice, as if that voice was trying to suck from me every positive emotion and thought. "Don't look at me like that, I went easy on you. I didn't make her kill you."

"Who are you, and what did you to Naert?" I said angrily and loudly. Now I could feel it, this thing before me was my worry which I felt the whole night.

"Oh, you really don't know? I am disappointed," it laughed, and flew few meters into the air. "I am a bringer of darkness and fear, I am a nightmare of the world. Reaper and right hand of Giratina, my name is Darkrai. For livings, I am only their bane but you can always say: 'legendaries do not exist'," his last words completely surprised me since he imitated Naert's voice perfectly.

"What a shame that dark-types are so resistant to manipulation, this scene could be much better if you would cooperate," it added bitingly. If it was really legendary I was already dead and even if for now, everything was showing that I couldn't die I was sure that real Darkrai would prove me that I was wrong. But I was still alive so maybe it didn't want to kill me yet, Naert was also still alive.

"I guess you are wondering what I am doing here? Why you met me, why I didn't kill your mate in some spectacular way, it would be a much better nightmare then quarrel. Forcing you to kill her would keep my hands clean but for some reasons, Giratina wants her alive. But you see, I am not coming here on Giratina orders. You have something that I want.

"I've been giving nightmares to pokemon and humans for aeons, tormenting them for just as long, the lowest life and legendaries which you didn't even hear about. But I became tired of this, I want to be something more than nightmare in someone's mind. I want to make it real in every possible aspect, I want to replace Giratina. To do it I need a thing. This thing which is inside of you, what changed you from nice and good jolteon to a serial killer and curser of this world."

"Even if I would want to give that to you I can't. It is not something that I can just drop," I said _. Replace Giratina? How could it do that? Isn't it her servant?_

"That won't be needed," it declared as from his fog-like body rose two long hands ended with the even longer shadowy claws. It was like a blink of the eye, it disappeared where it was and appeared next to me dipping his claws in my body. I screamed, first from surprise, later from the pain. I felt as if it was slicing me with its claws but they were going through me without leaving any wounds.

"Yes, I can feel it, that most powerful core of the darkness that I never felt," Darkrai was mumbling to himself as I was dying in the pain of agony. I couldn't move, I couldn't even fall on the ground. Then the ghost quickly backed away as if it was burnt. "It is not the same, I need clear antimatter, your..." it cut when it saw that its dark claws started becoming silver. With every second more and more of his claws changing colour going slowly going up on his arm. I didn't manage to stay on my feet and I fell to one side. I saw a long beam of fire flying through the air, briefly lighting the darkness of the night and slamming on floating Darkrai.

"You fucker, you manipulated me!" screamed Naert as she left the cover of the forest and walked into my sight. "Where is Sinar?!" she screamed angrily at Darkrai. The ghost looked at its changed hand and I saw the surprise in its eye.

"Pain, so this is how it feels," it spoke examining his hand as if he was wondering about some profound question.

"Yes, I can give you more if you don't answer me!" her nine tails were coated by bright dancing flames, lighting up the environment, overwhelming my weak glow of umbreon's rings.

"I am here," I stated loudly lifting my paw to be more visible. She looked at me but at the same time, the apparition appeared in front of her and hit her chest with its dark arm. She flipped on her back and grass quickly took fire from her tails.

"Look what have you done," taunted Darkrai pointing at the fire, spreading on the ground. Then I thought, if its now-silver hand can be burned then maybe it can be bitten. Hardly standing up I ran and jumped at the floating ghost. For a moment I thought that I would just go through its hand, as it usually does with a ghost, but then I felt something solid in my mouth so I bit it as hard as I could.

It tried to shake me off but I let go only when I saw something red coming out. The second after I let its hand it was once again overwhelmed by flames. Fire keep surrounding him for a few seconds before it faded away, Darkrai's hand wasn't yellow any longer but only because of how burnt it was. Then the pain which it gave to me returned as anger, I finally had some creature directly connected to Giratina who I could hurt. I didn't even realise that before my eyes appeared a dark mass in the form of a ball and the size of my head, following my instinct I pushed my head ahead and ball of darkness flew straight at the legendary. As the shot hit the target fragment of the dark energy dissipated in every direction.

There was no more Darkrai when I looked where it should be, the red sun was appearing slowly from the horizon as burning coal dragged behind long fumes of dark clouds. Red flames devoured the forest behind us.

"Sorry I didn't want to burn a forest," said Naert looking as the fire was crawling on the trees.

"Don't care about forest, run if we don't want to be burned with it," but only after I said it I realised that only I from both of us can be burned in the fire, it was always a chance that I managed to change to flareon in time but I didn't want to risk it. We ran opposite the fire direction, a fire wasn't the worst thing, much worse was smoke, it was much faster travelling with the wind. I needed to limit my breathing so as not to be choked with fumes of dense smoke. Naert wasn't covered in flames any longer and she hadn't any problems with breathing. But the distance between us and burning trees wasn't growing it was only closer and closer and no matter how fast we were going. It was like some kind of nightmare when something is chasing me and I never can run fast enough.

Wait, a nightmare. Could it be just a nightmare?

I stopped running and Naert almost bumped into me.

"Why you stopped we still can be burned," dramatised Naert.

 _We?_

"Aren't you fireproof?" I asked, maybe ninetales weren't as resistant to fire as other fire-types?

She was looking at me for a while and then laughed, when she stopped her eyes weren't red anymore but blue and cold as a bottom of a void.

"There is every detail, smell, touch, everything but I forgot about the simplest things," Naert said, or something with her appearance because I knew the voice wasn't hers. Then I got what she meant, by accident I guessed that it wasn't real, that I was dreaming, put into Darkrai nightmare.

"It is not easy to find something that can scare you. You hadn't childhood when you could become fearful. You are only scared about Giratina but I don't want to summon her," Darkrai wasn't keeping Naert's appearance any longer and returned to the appearance in which I saw him earlier. "Since you don't like my nightmares, please enjoy the emptiness of your own mind." As it said, the world around disappeared and I saw only darkness in every direction and the floor in the same dark colour under my feet, with the world Darkrai also disappeared and I was left completely alone in nothing.

I had a feeling that I was waiting for something but as time was passing and I was standing nothing happened. I looked around but in every direction was the same sight, darkness. Uncomfortable overwhelming and ubiquitous emptiness, I didn't know any longer to which way I was standing, everything was mixing. I spun around, or maybe it the ground spun and I was standing in place? I felt confused and ill.

"Oh, hello!" I heard a cheerful voice from...left or right? I turned to the source of voice to find sitting leafeon with a broad grin on his face.

"Myron?" I questioned and he vastly nodded even if I wasn't asking him if it was really he, I did that impulsively. "But what you are doing here?"

"Well, I actually should ask what you are doing here, it is your mind. This is the place where I and the rest live, but you shouldn't be here if you are not asleep," Myron said as I walked to him and only then I noticed that I returned to my eevee form. But I was eevee in all of my dreams so if I was forced to stay unconscious then I wasn't expecting anything different.

"And am I not?"

"No, actually you are following some scent trying to find Rea," _Was I?_ "Oh, and you changed to jolteon without electricity, that's intriguing. The last mutation really messed you up a lot. But you don't need to worry, you are not raging, shooting thunders in every direction and screaming some random words, it looks that you didn't even notice," he explained calmly.

"And Naert?"

"For now, you are successfully ignoring her and generally everything around," the leafeon responded. "But what you are doing here?

"Okey listen, Darkrai jailed me here, it seems that everything that I saw, for now, was just a dream and maybe this is another one but I need to fight him somehow."

The grin left Myron's face but he didn't lose his good mood.

"Let's tell that to the others, most of them are probably at the pond," Myron said, stood up, and started walking to my left.

"A pond? Here?" I questioned as I saw only darkness around me.

"Yeah," he shot shortly and a moment later I was standing on soft green grass at the bank of the pond in the same shade of blue as the sky above. I couldn't see the sun but it was a day. I saw Zenon with Kilian peacefully swimming in the pond, my namesake Sinar the jolteon devastating some rock with thunders and flareon who was highly observation poor rock. Lasota was sitting alone at the pond bank few metres before me. Snowid the glaceon was nowhere in the view.

"So, when I am running around you are just enjoying your time here? That is not fair," I said imitating irritation, I knew that it was all in my head.

"Yes, exactly," In the same moment everyone lost interest in whatever they were doing as they noticed me. It took a while before umbreon and vaporeon exited the water, flareon persuaded that the rock doesn't need to be more electrifying and before Lasota finally walked to us. In the meantime, even Snowid appeared. I guessed that he had some cooler place to be since he was colder than a body of someone who is dead.

"Are we really need to do this show?" said Lasota as if he was irritated. "There is nothing that this dark floating fart could do to us."

"You mean Darkrai? But it is funny when he is trying," laughed Zenon.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," warned Flareon.

Then Myron ostentatiously coughed and pointed at me with his leaf-tail, and for a moment I become a point of everyone's stare.

"Umm, what you are doing here?" Snowid broke the uncomfortable silence which appeared when I was wondering why I needed to be pointed.

"I was forced by Darkrai to stay in my mind," I answered and realised that there wasn't too much sense in this what I said.

"See I said that we shouldn't be that confident that he can't do anything to us," remarked Flareon, I started to feel that I was missing something, I wasn't surprised that they knew about Darkrai since they are part of me but it looked that they knew much more than I. Or maybe I just wanted some help and imagined that they know more so they would be able to help me.

"Yes we shouldn't, it not the same nightmare ghost who just bring some bad dreams and go away when he would have enough, he has ambitions now crazy ambitions. He can be dangerous," Myron said making me feel even more out of the conversation. Not the same? Did I meet him earlier?

"Am I missing something? You know, we didn't meet him earlier," I remarked. Myron opened his mouth to answer me but Lasota was faster. But when he spoke, he spoke straight to Myron.

"If it comes to legendaries, he needs to know. It is his life which you are trying to risk," he said making Myron close his mouth and once again air fulfilled awkward silence.

"Okay now I completely don't understand what you are talking about," I declared. Did I really go that mad that my mind was thinking in another way than I?

"Sinar," if I wouldn't be looking at right now Myron I would never guess that it was he who said it. From his typical happy and cheerful voice, he went to very serious but calm tonation. That unexpected change made me feel strange as I was looking at familiar yet momentary unknown leafeon.

"Continue," Lasota pressed.

"I...we-" he waved his paw through the line of eeveelutions whose gazes made me feel even more inappropriate here. "We are not just your imagination," Myron ended finally.

It took me a while before his words sink into my head. Yes, I am insane, even more, insane than I was earlier. Earlier I was only temporary forgetting that they are not real. Now my mind tries to say me otherwise.

"We are serious Sinar," Kilian spoke. "Yes, we are in your mind, we see the world by your eyes but we have our own mind. We know about things which you don't know, we are the mass that you simply called antimatter. It is not an empty void, it is what everyone who died left but you guessed right, Giratina is a ruler of this 'mass'."

"You felt it when you used psychic on arcanine," Lasota replaced him. "This negative energy filled with hate and rage, we once were the same and some of us still are." He looked at jolteon who actually wasn't paying any attention to our talk.

"We changed you, right now you should be normal jolteon. Dead fifty years ago," said Zenon. "But because of how Giratina manipulated not only you, but also us you are now like that."

No one continued this talk, they were looking at me waiting for my reaction, so I laughed. I laughed long like a maniac but I didn't know what was funny in that, I noticed that eeveelutions looked at each other nervously.

"When I wake up, I need to ask Naert to burn me alive before my craziness will get even worse," I declared as my laugh died.

"I doubted that you would understand our existence but what in your opinion we are then?!" Snowid asked irritatedly.

"My imagination," I answered simply. "I just took parts of my personality and gave one part to every of my form that what you are."

"Your forms are completely disconnected from us!" Snowid screamed angrily. "Those are just part of your mutation which Giratina gave you. Some changed genes responsible for evolution in some eeveelution way!"

"Then why you perfectly fit my theory and are looking just like my when I am in the same type? You are every eeveelutions in which I changed, you can't be no connected to my forms, 'souls' of dead and fit every each of them," what a pointless discussion with myself, maybe it was just a nightmare which Darkrai gave me now? Annoying discussions which lead to nowhere.

"We are bound to you but there is actually a thing which can convince you," Myron smiled. "You had never changed to sylveon, right? What would you say if you would saw it now?

"I would say that worst nightmare of my life to see myself as sylveon, but you are usually saving me from nightmares, not trying to drag me into one," I replied.

"Okay then watch," he said and screamed, "Come out sylveon!"

For a moment nothing happened and thoughts about being burned for this craziness returned to me. But then from behind of rock which earlier was shocked by jolteon appeared two thin and long things coloured in the mix of blue and lavender and shortly after a head in the same lavender colour with two blankly blue eyes. But these eyes weren't that cold as Darkrai's eye, they were in similar blue colour but it looked more that its user was blind then wanting to kill someone.

So, my nightmare came true. I saw a male sylveon who had my face. It wasn't that bad as I was imagining that but this was still far from something that I could call good look. But even now his appearance was making me feel friendly toward him. In the good meaning of this word obviously. I had never before met fairy-type but I heard that besides their unusual appearance they are quite nice.

"We kept him out of your sight as we were waiting as you change into sylveon. Unfortunately, you never were cheerful enough to do so," Myron explained. That could convince me but there was one more thing what I should remember about, it could be just a dream, manipulated by the powerful ghost who wanted to trap me here. But if they were really a thing called antimatter or I should say, souls of dead ones then they were Darkrai's target.

Sylveon didn't even make half the distance which was separating him from our group, when from the water of the pond emerged the dark creature with a long white line of smoke from its head down and over his eye, as if it were hairs.

"Reality, what would be the reality for you now when you are trapped in a labyrinth of dreams and..." it spoke and stopped when he noticed not only me but a whole pack of eeveelutions. "I wasn't expecting anything like that, which one of you is Sinar?"

As if someone gave a command everyone ruffled its fur on the back standing up and facing floating bane. Even Sinar the jolteon whose ruffling was most impressive.

"HAA!" he roared wildly. " Finally someone to kill which I can personally lead to death, not just watch!" It seemed that ghost wanted to say something but crackles of static going through spike fur stopped him and shortly after he unleashed thunder that bright and thick that it looked like a beam of white light. But just like before, Darkrai disappeared and immediately appeared two meters further than the beam was about to hit. The thunder flew above the whole pond and smacked into a rock creating a cloud of statics discharges which charred everything around and stunned everyone with a loud bang.

Jolteon wasn't wasting time and, as if creating thunder like this was no effort for him, he jumped at Darkrai, enveloped in statics discharges. The fight was energetic and it looked as if Darkrai hadn't any chance versus mad jolteon who with its speed was just as fast as Darkrai's teleportation. Kilian and Snowid ran to help with the fight, Lasota stayed with me in defending a position, along with Myron by my side.

Then I felt saw some smoke going up close above my head, I checked it with my paw. As I looked at my paw I saw that it was covered in blood. I was bleeding from my nose, and I also started to feel weaker and dizzy. I covered my nose with a paw to stop the bleeding. I quickly found it hard to sit with only one foot as a support so I lean on Myron's side and I felt as if I could pass out in every moment. Here, in dream land, I hadn't my life-saving ability of healing black smoke, just like I didn't have my form-changing ability. The feeling was weird, unusual and completely unwanted.

Myron noticed my behaviour and said something, I couldn't hear what he said even if I was so close to him but his face expression showed great worry. Soon every sound stopped coming to me and I started to hear only a long monotonous squeak, I needed to fight with my lids to keep my eyes open but I finally gave up and the only one thing which stayed was a headache.

I was lifted or I thought I was as I still had my eyes closed. I felt weird, extremely light, ripped apart, empty and open wide.

"Sinar wake up!" it wasn't easy but this one annoying voice made my open my eyes. Above me was head of Myron but our environment was completely new. We were at a flat rock, with cracks spreading in every direction.

"What happened?" I asked turning my stomach, a headache didn't disappear yet but I felt that with every second I feel better.

"I was stupid that I didn't think about it earlier, fighting with Darkrai in your mind is a very bad idea but Sinar-I mean jolteon Sinar-is so unbridled. I just hope you didn't get any permanent injuries but if you do get any...I am sorry but you can return to yourself," said Myron looking very seriously. Where did the always happy-leafeon in me go?

"What you mean that I can't return to myself?" I asked, not understanding.

"You see these fields?" he moved his leaf around. "It is not a part of your mind, we are 'outside' I took you there so Darkrai doesn't have you yet, you can't fall asleep in this world of dreams, we all would lose if you pass out," he explained but I still couldn't get what he meant.

"So, am I dead? In antimatter? Just another soul like you? How could I bleed then?" I questioned to make the situation clearer.

"No, you are not dead, but you are not in reality either. Here, time and reality do not exist, just like in antimatter, in reality you are still breathing albeit unconscious. You only felt the bleeding, but you will see real blood when you wake up. The rest manage to push Darkrai from your mind and fight him on the field similar to this one," he explained. "I, I need to leave you now and help them." His voice suddenly became very sad.

"There is some 'but' I guess," I tried to push him to what he was about to say.

"It is the last time when we see each other. Darkrai won't stop, it needs to be annihilated but if we do this we will annihilate also ourselves," he said. "But I won't leave you here alone, she should be here in every second."

 _Who?_

"But you said that you are dead, you can't die for the second time!" I remarked.

"Yes, I can, since I never really died. Not everyone who died is in antimatter, to join in you need to make... a choice. You are here only because of Darkrai," he said.

"Myron it is you again," I heard a familiar but bored voice from behind and when I looked behind I saw even more familiar flareon. "Oh Sinar! What are you doing here? Is he haunting you too?"

"Wait, you know each other?" I asked surprised. _How Rea could even know Myron if he was all the time in my head?_

"You weren't careful enough and cursed her, that gained us access to her mind too," said Myron. "Farewell, soon everything returns to normal you will return to yourself when we end our fight."

"Wait!" but he already disappeared, as if he melted into the air.

"Sinar, I have some problem," Rea said. "I am ill, but I think you can help."


	9. Chapter 9 'One way'

The thought that I just saw Myron for last time in my life could not sink in my mind, it just happened too fast, too unexpectedly. At first, I saw how Darkrai is avoiding Sinar the jolteon's powerful thunderbolts, thinking "there is nothing to be worry about", but a moment later Myron just said that they are going to suicide, sacrificing themselves so I may live.

He did not even want to know what I thought about it. Maybe he didn't want to know, maybe this way it was easier for him, or maybe he was in a hurry? What would happen to me now? When I changed to another form I always thought that I became someone different, but now it would be just me and myself. Kilian wouldn't give me advice, Sinar won't scream in my head, Myron wouldn't be irritating me with his cheerful character and I wouldn't have a chance to speak with Snowid again. I wouldn't even meet sylveon who was with me my whole life, waiting for an occasion to show himself, I didn't like this appearance but I felt that I lost something really important by not meeting him.

Intensive tapping in my forehead snapped me out of my thoughts.

"Are you listening?" Rea asked when I looked up.

"No," I answered still not fully concentrated on the talk. "Sorry, could you repeat?"

"I was asking you where did you meet Myron? He was appearing in my dreams lately with some other eeveelutions, we had some talks but we didn't exchange any important pieces of information. But it looks to me that you know him," she repeated, a little irritated.

 _Why didn't he tell me earlier that Rea was cursed?_

"He was a friend," I sighed. Now he only 'was'. There was still a chance that this was only a dream: in Darkrai's playground and it was its game. But this just didn't look like a dream, I still couldn't understand where I was. It wasn't looking like anything that I knew, some kind of dream and reality mix.

"I met him..." when did I meet him? It had to be during my training in Distortion World after I gained my ability to form change, he never was very helpful but he was always someone to talk to. Myron was the third one which I met, the first one was Sinar.

"Anything more?" Rea demanded.

"I knew him my whole life." I wish I could have learned more about their lives, if I had ever known they were separate beings trapped inside me.

"So he was haunting you all the time? And now he will haunt me!?" Rea squealed.

"No, he won't," I answered; no one would 'haunt' me anymore.

"Uh, if you say so," she breathed. "But what you are doing in my dream then? Because this is one of 'these' dreams right? These which aren't just random images?"

I actually didn't know any different kind of dreams, mine always were containing some of my other parts or different souls or whatever they really were. Another thing which I would never learn.

"I don't know what I am doing here, I met Darkrai and then everything went crazy, I don't even know when I left the real world and found myself in a dream," I blurted. It was the third time in a row when I passed out I hoped that Naert won't be worried when I wake up-if I wake up.

"You were saying that you have some problem and I found out from some giant umbreon that you are ill, is that right?" I put aside my sadnesses for a moment.

"You met Fluffy?" Rea questioned.

"His name is Fluffy?!" I exclaimed. Why didn't I know that while I was talking with him?

"Maybe it is not his name but everyone calls him that," Rea added. "It is because of how he looked while he was eevee."

"Okay it is not important right now, what is wrong with you?" I asked but I already knew, Myron said that I cursed her, I didn't see any differences right now but I guessed that here, in this dreamland it didn't work since I was eevee even if I was sleeping in some other form.

"Well, how to explain it? I feel weird, sometimes so angry that I could kill, sometimes sad, I can't sleep and I have a feeling that I need to go somewhere, that there is a place which is calling for me," she said sitting down on the ground and looking very serious. I also sat down and thought about it for a moment, it maybe was stupid but I needed to ask for it.

"And you are sure that is not any of your, umm..you know, natural process," I asked sheepishly and her serious look changed to angry glare.

"My eyes look like a pair of blue headlights and my fire is blue and cold, it is not some natural process," she hissed. _Why didn't she start by saying that?_

"What? Headlights?" I questioned. Currently, her eyes were dark green but it was just because of this world I was currently in. Then I noticed that if I was speaking with her while she was dreaming then I become a voice to her like Kilian and the rest were for me, I just hoped that it won't be too long. She sighed and stopped glaring at me.

"It is some kind of source of very bright light, it helps to see at a very long distance in the dark if you put jolteon to it, it some of the human's technology," she explained, looking down curling her tail around her legs.

"If this is some kind of manmade thing then why would you know about it, I thought you were wild," I was puzzled but then I reminded myself that in the tent where she-or rather the hunters that hired her-captured me, I found also some technological things there.

"My pack is close to the ruins of the city, that's why we know few things about it and even take some of them to our dens. Like big cuboid rock which can make ice if you fulfil it with water, some espeon even learned how to read letters so we know how it is called," she said proudly.

"And what it is called?" I wasn't very interest but I thought that I know what she was talking about. I saw some of the theses metal rock before I destroyed the city, humans were keeping there some small glass bugs which drained some of my dark smoke with its needles.

"It was 'eon flarfla'," she tried to say but she grimaced after hearing what she just said and tried once again with the same result. For me, it sounded just as some random not connected with each other syllables, not making any sense. "When espeon said it via telepathy it sounded much different, I just can't make this weird sounds. But he said that means 'pull here'."

"Humans really don't know how to name things," I declared. 'Pull here', a senseless name for ice making rock. It should be named 'ice making rock' or at last 'water to ice changing rock'. "Eee evev," I tried to repeat how Rea pronounced the name of this metallic rock but I found that I couldn't make it sound the same. "It is some weird human's sounds probably, let's leave it. So just your eyes and flame is messed up? Well that is not that bad."

"Not that bad!? I've become some freak! Some invisible force is dragging me through unknown territory, and I attacked my friend not knowing that he just wanted to help. I am going insane, I can't be like that!" she stormed. I noticed a tear on her cheek but she quickly washed it away.

"This friend, is he still with you?" I asked calmly. She didn't respond immediately trying to calm herself down be deep breathes. "Who you took with you."

"His name is Terid and he is espeon," she said finally.

"Yeah, I remember you mentioned something about him while we were in the ruined city," I pondered. "Wherever this 'feeling' is forcing you to go, you should stop," I remember what I heard from the arcanine, the 'feeling' could be a call from Giratina.

"But it promised me to return me back to normal and, umm, I am already there, I am sleeping there actually," she said. The 'Promised', now I was sure, that was Giratina's voice but what could she want from Rea? Although she was cursed, she hadn't antimatter inside so she couldn't be very helpful.

"Can you describe a place where you fall asleep?" I wanted to know where a 'feeling' dragged her.

"Sure, it looks like large clearing, every tree around is crushed, burned, but not from a fire, more like as if they were struck by lightning. But how it is possible that every tree got hit by lightning? The whole ground was covered by ash. I hadn't problems with that but Terid couldn't breathe until he learned how to filter the air with his psychic. There is also..."

"...a sickle-shaped lake with the always flat sheet of the water, dark like night reflecting the stars even during the day," I finished for her. I knew that place. It was where I was about to build a portal between the two worlds but decided otherwise. The lake was a fragment of the portal put aside like part of the broken glass waiting to be put together again.

"Uh, you almost guessed correctly, but the lake is almost perfectly round," a shiver went through my spine when I heard what she just said.

Perfectly round? But that would mean that the portal was almost complete. Maybe arcanine was right, I didn't need to focus on building it, all I needed to do was to live here, in the normal world and portal could be build by itself. I needed to go there and do something but what? I couldn't just close it, I wasn't taught how to do that but I always could...go inside.

If I returned to the Distortion World the process would stop but I would be trapped with my greatest fear: Giratina. What could I do? Go there and wildly jump at Giratina with teeth? Psychic wouldn't work no matter how strong I could become in that, there is no sun in Distortion World to change into espeon. But if it would be the only solution... then I would be worrying how to kill her when I go inside.

"Listen now, you can't sleep there, you need to run from there, it is dangerous, try to wake up," I commanded her loudly which actually had to have looked funny since I was still in my eevee appearance. I gritted my teeth at this unpleasant thought since I was serious now. Or was I only overthinking this?

"Well, okay I'll try," she wasn't trying, but my look made her take my worry seriously or at least behave like that. I saw that she closed her eyes and started repeating something but I couldn't hear a word.

Then I started a feel a force which as if the wind was pushing me backwards: at first quite gently but becoming stronger and stronger. I wanted to resist but I couldn't. Rea seemed to not notice anything, as if the wind wasn't even affecting her, as her fur didn't even move. I couldn't stay in place and I became further and further from Rea, I opened my mouth but no sound came out. Then I completely lost the ground and the world started spinning.

* * *

It was like a blink of the eye when I woke up in the forest, it was dawn. At first, there was only a weak glow, a thin blue line of the light separating the dark sky from the also dark silhouette of the land. The band of light slowly got wider as if it was a rising eyelid, showing the great and round pupil of the morning yellow sun.

Shadows disappeared, dark fumes in the sky become fluffy white clouds and monstrous arms become trees. I found myself lying warmed from every direction. As I looked around I saw that around my curled body was lying around another also curled up body. She was keeping her head rested on my back and was still asleep. I hoped that I won't become too big worry for her in this night.

As I looked around I rested my head on my forepaws doing it gently to don't wake her up. I didn't know what exactly happened on this night, when I drifted away, maybe she had her own fight with Darkrai?

 _Myron?_ I thought with a hope but minutes had passed and there was no response. So this really happened, I lost them.

I curled even more and braided my dark tail between Naert's many tails. We were in the shadow of the tree so I stayed in my umbreon form. The warmth was pleasant. Her heat was always pleasant. She moved slightly, getting even closer but not waking up.

Would I be strong enough to put my life away and stay in the Distortion World? Or maybe should I let the sun and the skies fall down and just follow the whispers of my heart.

I don't need to save the whole world, just her and part of the ground where we could live. But how could I do it? If I entered the Distortion World I won't leave it alive, or I kill Giratina, or she would kill me but if I won't do anything much even more would die.

"There are so many legendaries somewhere there," I sighed silently looking at the sky, not lifting my head. "But it is only me to fight that."

"You lazy shits."

And here I was, a replacement for a legendary, hidden under my mate, depressed and overwhelmed by events which happened around. I couldn't be like that.

I slowly stood up, trying not to wake Naert, who curled up even more after she lost touch with me. I hesitated, should I leave her something? Anything that could tell her what I was planning to do? I shouldn't leave her without anything when I knew how much it would hurt her. Then I got an idea.

I exposed myself to the morning sun and after a moment changed to espeon. Then I used my psychic in a similar way in which I used on arcanine but much much more delicately, only slightly dabbing her mind but not going any further. It was as if I would open the third eye as I saw her dream.

She was at the bank of the river. A great waterfall was falling from the mountainside closely adhering to the cliff.

"Sometimes I regret that I am fire-type and can't enjoy the water. Just look how great it looks," she excited looking at the waterfall hardly hitting the surface of the lake before creating a cloud of steam of the water.

Then I reminded myself about what she was dreaming. It was long ago, our first destination of our second year together when we became bored of staying in the valley. I decided to show her every place which I was considering as worthwhile to see. The waterfall wasn't huge or extremely high but had many turns on the pending rocks on the mountainside which made it look like as if it was living creature running between them.

I knew what would happen next, I would walk through the bushes and stand next to Naert, facing the waterfall. And after a second exactly that happened (in her dream, I was as leafeon). But when he stood next to Naert and was about to comment on the waterfall I used my psychic on her mouth. There was no resistance as it was only a memory. For a moment I thought what I was about to say. 'Hey I am leaving you to trap myself with Giratina', but no, I couldn't say it like that.

I exchanged my psychic powers with Naert, looking deep into her mind. I saw as if millions of imagines were floating in every direction in small or bigger groups, incredibly avoiding each other's' paths. It took me a good amount of time but then I found it. Memories of me, moments which she spent being with me, our meetings, our trips and our reunion. I moved forward it but when I was about to touch it I stopped. One more step forward and I became for her a strange creature, she won't recognise me anymore, she wouldn't remember anything about me. But maybe this way it would be better? She had a long life ahead which I might destroy. But maybe if I hurt her now I would spare her pain later. She can't feel something that she does not remember.

"I am sorry," I coughed up. My heart was bleeding and I could feel a tear appearing in my eyes when I moved forward and imagines of memories started to be torn apart, disappearing like smoke in the wind. And I had to see every one of them as it dissipated in the air not leaving a trace.

There was only one memory left, on this image I could see myself lying on the branch, she was looking from below and moment after Naert was surrounded by the bright light. I closed my eyes, I didn't want to see it, I didn't want to see my expression when I saw her then. But I didn't stop, when I opened my eyes once again a memory was gone, it was last one.

Like going out of the water I slowly exited her mind. When I was again as the real me, with Naert still sleeping on the ground, I changed to leafeon and ran through the forest. I didn't need a scent anymore to find a right way. I would always find this place no matter where I would be.

I ran, jumping over roots, going through the thick bushes, being slammed by a very low branch of the trees. Leaving my tears on everything that I passed. I felt empty as if my heart was squeezing by some powerful hand, I was alone again but it couldn't be different. Maybe it would be better if Naert wouldn't find me at all? No, that wouldn't be easier then. But my pain quickly changed to anger. It was all Giratina's fault, if she would leave me once for good, I could live a happy life. It was she who killed Myron, Kilian, Zenon and even this sylveon who I didn't have a chance to meet. She killed all of them and everyone who I killed were killed because of her. She was a master of death, everyone who was dying or suffering was giving her pleasure.

Then I noticed that it started storming, white lightning cutting the sky in half. The same weather when I betrayed her. I took it as a good sign, everything that was good for me started this one night so maybe I would repeat that, or end it.

I wasn't afraid of lightning even when its energy elected my genes. My fur growth longer and started to merge together creating sharp spikes on my whole body but mainly at my back. Then I felt this uncomfortable feeling when my tail was disappearing and my muzzle was getting longer. My run became faster, much faster as my vision started to be like a blur. Weaker and stronger discharges were going through my fur leaving a small static cloud behind me, slightly burning nearby plants. The cloud of discharges behind me grew and started emitting a noisy crackling sound. Lightning bolts were hitting the ground all around me as I became a typhoon of electricity, leaving forest devastated, marking my path.

With all the electricity going through me I couldn't notice how many time had passed. Was it ten minutes or an hour that I was running for? I didn't know, I didn't want to know. Important was how much I needed to wait to release all of my rages at the serpentine dragon.

The normal forest already ended and I was going through the destroyed one, with all burned trees and ground. I already could see the silhouette of the lake on the horizon...with many floating ghosts around. On the ground were standing two transparent, perfectly smooth rocks in rotten violet colour, suspended in each of them were a floating espeon and flareon.

The ghosts quickly noticed me since I wasn't hard to miss with the whole storm all around of me. With a bloodcurdling howl they rushed to meet me. A ghost horde even from that far seemed to be familiar, even now in the sight changed by madness I could see a haunter which I though I met earlier but I was only guessing, to me all of them looked the same: dead, and now they will die for the second time.

When the huge group of ghosts and me were about to meet I immediately stopped but a storm of electricity went further as I charged it, even more, unleashing the power magazine in my fur. There was no matter now how much resistant the were, what were their second types or what abilities they had. That was a power of Giratina, who instead of lighting up the surroundings was swamping the environment in the darkness. Some ghost changed into a cloud of fumes which were quickly torn apart by the wind blows other were screaming as their body was shared by lightings which were cutting their dark mass better than any blade could do. There was only a few more second of howls and then everything went silent, almost silent. There was still an irritating sound of clapping.

I felt as my whole strength left me, I needed to charge myself again. It would take a few minutes after how much energy I used up just now. The sound of clapping got more intensive and changed into applause. With a growl, I turned my head in direction of the sound. Two meters above the ground was floating another ghost, very similar to Darkrai but it wasn't him: Darkrai was destroyed. This one was grey and looked much more material than just a cloud of smoke. He had only one eye in the centre of his head and was quickly clapping his long hands ended with five fingers. I wanted to unleash a thunder at him but I manage to create only some weak sparkles which didn't even left my fur.

"Impressive, most impressive," a dusknoir spoke deeply. "I hope that my horde, at last, leaves a scratch at the Giratina's litter."

"Shut up," I hissed. I hadn't heard my own voice in this form in a long time: it was so cold, so harsh, cracking and rusting as if it contained some electricity.

"Uh, where are my manners. I am Draught, a herald of the horde which you successfully annihilated," he continued completely ignoring my command, he was looking at me haughty as he clenched his fists. "Excuse me, but I wanted to give your head to Giratina as a welcome gift to this world." Just as he said it, he shot at me with his fists first. I wanted to thunderbolt him but found that my reserves were still not charged enough.

His fist hit me hard in my forehead, making me fly back as I didn't manage to duck. He followed me as I was still flying and hit me with both hands slamming me to the ground. But even then he didn't give me a second to stand up, hammering me into the ground in series of a blows. My anger returned to me as the waves of pain didn't leave my head and the moment after the air was once again filled in the dark "light". Dusknoir was pushed back by electricity but hadn't any visible injuries. I quickly stood up on all fours and glared at the ghost.

"You sent to me a lot of souls, dark jolteon. But I always wanted yours, I am a collector of souls, I plead you, join my collection," he said. I was a dark jolteon, only my sides had yellow zigzagged lines: my real form, the main one, in which I was truly myself just like in the day when I gained my freedom or turned a city into the ruin.

He was slowly floating in a circle waiting to strike again and I was charging as much energy I could before he decided to attack.

"I will send you to the Distortion World and then find you there to kill you again," I threatened him, I could feel my rage growing again.

"That would be a pleasure," he chortled and again shot at me like a bullet, from the place, without a run-up. But now I had enough energy, and I quickly created a thunder cloud around me and when he got into range, long sparks went through his body, leaving long burned lines. He stood in place, paralysed. I jumped back making some distance between us, and shot a thunder attack at him, following it with my teeth. The thunder hit him straight in the centre of his body and my charged teeth reabsorbed the excess energy ricocheting from him, charging me up again.

I was close to being charged with enough to unleash another wave of annihilation. Just a little more. Dusknoir wasn't that fast and talkative anymore, he was loudly howling but it wasn't howling like earlier, it was deeper and with more bass. I smiled at my opponent suffering, my own wounds were hidden under a thick cloud of dark smoke and adrenaline was preventing me from feeling the pain.

"What would I do without all of this," I said to myself. "Shhh...KILL HIM, I KILL HIM, I KILL YOU, YES YES HAHA," I started jumping up and down as the wave of happiness stroke my mind. "DIE!" I roared wildly as I suddenly stopped jumping and another static cloud went before me like a moving wall destroying everything of its way. Dusknoir didn't even try to avoid it, he surrounded himself in the defending ball of light but it burst like a soap bubble. When the storm ended, the empty grey shell what was formerly the dusknoir's body fell on the ground.

"Haha, I won!" I screamed like a maniac and ran to the shell and jumped on it, running into a circle, jumping up and down of the empty dusknoir corpus. At the end, I tried to eat the shell biting it rapidly but it was too hard for my teeth what irritated me. I once again got inside and realised electricity in every direction blasting the shell into million pieces.

Next what got my attention were two violet stones. I ran happily jumping on things what left from the destroyed ghost, I especially liked duskull's skulls and sableye's eyes when they cracked and broke under my dark feets.

When I got to the stones I saw that even when they were transparent I could see my reflection in them.

My eyes were pinned to my reflection as I couldn't look away, it seemed that my eyes started to glow and I felt that I completely froze. My vision limited to the only these two glowing pupils, I was sinking in them, they were overwhelming me with this cold blue glow, consuming me, going deep my mind and anchoring somewhere at the back. Soon I started to see things, terrible things but I still couldn't look away. All my happiness suddenly left me when I started to hear a scream somewhere in a background which was getting louder and louder.

It was something dark on the back of my mind, like a needle going deeper and deeper into my head. It was death, thousands of dead pokemon walking together, I didn't see any pokemon who had complete bodies, they were cut open, without heads, others without tails, some of them were missing their legs and they were all like worms crawling on the ground but still, continue the march, living on the ground rivers of blood with its internal organs like a small boat which was floating in the deeply red liquid as on the calm water. The ground was all burned and all of the cracks, made of rock in maroon colour. I saw in my vision a tall creature walking toward me, the whole body was covered in cuts and dry blood, behind her were nine tails created from bone, from which only small parts of meat were still holding.

"You will die, you are created to die," the dark jolteon from the reflection spoke to me. The screams became that more intensive, and I started to feel weak, so weak that I finally fell to my side. The scream immediately died, my eyes stopped emitting light and I snapped out as if it was some long dream.

I looked around and noticed that I was lying just before the violet stone which contained the strange espeon.

"Fucking eyes," I muttered. It wasn't the first time I hypnotised myself, and it never was an enjoyable experience. It was draining happiness from who look in them and replacing it with fears which everyone had hidden somewhere at the back of his mind.

 _Electricity, too much electricity._

This power was dragging me to madness but now I calm down. I noticed that it became night again. I needed to stare at myself whole day and didn't even notice the passing time. I once again looked at the two eeveelutions trapped in the purple half-rock-half-liquid. I knew what it was, it was like the ariados' web to trap his 'food'. Giratina had done this to trap her prey into something like that. She needed to eat too and because of her aggressive character, she was hunting much more than she needed.

What she didn't manage to eat she enclosed in this violet substance, she had thousands of these things with random creatures trapped it, not only normal pokemon or humans but also legendaries weaker than her that no one will ever hear about. The mass was some kind of ice but it wasn't cold: it kept the creature inside alive as long as the ghost-dragon wanted, as if time inside has stopped. She didn't need to make these structures personally, I guess that ghost or at least dusknoir used a curse from the portal to create these two enclosures. I couldn't recognise if that was Rea inside of that but it was highly probable since she said that she had an espeon with her, who was right now in the second trap.

"So you didn't run away," I said to myself sadly and faced the round and dark lake behind the stones, I slowly walked to its shore but when I looked in a sheet of the water I didn't see my reflection in the water, which only reflected the stars in sky on this fateful night. I sighed and put one of my paws into a dark mass, it wasn't water. It was warm, gluey and thick, I needed to push my paw to make it sink into that. Just as my paw was in, my zigzag marks on my both sides started emitting intensive yellow light just like dots in my eyes started emitting light blue.

I was once again filled with the energy of the Distortion World, and now there was no turning back. I dipped another paw into the lake and followed by another and after a moment I was slowly sinking in. The substance started to gurgle, destroying the perfect reflection of the sky from the past.

My heart was beating fast, I already wanted to end it, to stop feeling anything: the sadness that I left Naert. No, not just left her, at first I changed her life from a naive vulpix to my walking support in which I could find motivation, happiness and hope. I simply used her to make myself feel better, then I scared her and even when she returned I dragged her along through danger.

Then I lost these beings who I thought was just my imagination: Myron, Zenon, Kilian, Snowid, Lasota, Flareon, Sinar and this Sylveon they were with me my whole life trapped by Giratina but I didn't even take an effort to meet them.

And I then cursed Rea, dooming myself. I had no doubts that Giratina guided her here through her mysterious illness: she needed her to do something with the portal. I probably killed Rea by this because if I don't succeed, and I doubt that I will, Giratina would eat her, sooner or later. But was I ready to face Giratina? Would I just curl up in a ball before her, hoping that with fear it wouldn't hurt that much? What if it was already too late and I just made my life shorter, going to my reaper?

I was already half-sunk into the dark mass of the portal, I looked up, enjoying maybe the last time I would see how this world looked like. I just hoped that I was going there only for a while.

Soon there was only my head above of the 'water', and when my whole body was under the sheet of the lake everything changed.

I wasn't in the lake anymore, before me was a great wall in a mix of dark and grey colour, incredibly high and long in every direction but with a hole before me. It wasn't the same hole in which I had problems to fit even as a small eevee, now it was broad and wide open. Not big enough for a serpentine dragon, Giratina couldn't fit here but an arcanine could walk through that with his head height.

From the walls and ceiling of the tunnel in the barrier was some sprinkles, like sand fragments. I entered the hole and walked ahead, it was completely dark here but I was lighting up my way by myself. I hadn't all these things when I was passing through here the first time, it came later with every next mutation but I didn't know what exactly came when. I wasn't as jolteon to often to keep with my changes in this form but if my eyes wouldn't stay the same I wouldn't recognise myself in the mirror. Even my own paws looked strange to me when I was looking down at them.

I came at the exit of the tunnel, just one more step and I would be fully in Distortion World. I needed my rage now, instead of wandering about sadness. I focused on the powers inside of me, forcing dark sparks to jump in my fur. I started charging myself as I did this last step and exited the hole and entered a large place of not cold or slippery ice, which was spreading in every direction. Just as I entered I stopped once more. I was really here again, in place which I promised to avoid as long I could. I just hoped that it would be worth it.

 _ **Hello, Taranis. Welcome home.**_


	10. Chapter 10 'Void'

**Chapter 10: Chapter 10 'Void'**

* * *

I was once again standing on the flat ice-like floor at the edge of Distortion World. The wall behind me, once high and broad, smooth like a mirror, was now in ruins. Giant holes made it look like a slice of giant grey cheese, every hole was in different size, some of them were tight just like this one which I used in the past. Others were wide and broad but not big enough to allow Giratina to pass through.

My spiked fur stood up when I felt the blowing of the wind, which was unusual in Distortion World. The air here was hard to describe, it was stinking but hard to pinpoint, it was cold but I wasn't freezing, heavy but not in a way that made me tired. But the wind only appeared when the giant ghost dragon was in a move.

Her roar was possible to hear from every corner of this cursed world as if the wind was working for her, carrying her words further than every normal sound could reach. In this world rules from the normal world didn't exist, gravitation was random, environment even more so: houses clinging onto rocky cliffs, snow lying on ardent lava, plants with dancing flames instead of flowers. But as much as I didn't want to agree to it, I liked this environment. In the normal world, everything seemed to be different, it had something irritating, something with which I couldn't get along. It was the energy of Distortion World, here I could feel it all around, that was powering my jolteon form, making me feel comfortable and strong.

But it was all a lie. It just wanted to seemed like that. It wanted to keep me here, make me think bad about the things that normal world had to offer.

Another wave of wind went through my fur, now much stronger, able to move my hard spikes of fur. The moving spikes immediately made few smaller discharges as fur rubbed against each other.

Following these discharges I started charging my static attack, this one which Giratina gave me, which causes massive death. More small sparks started jumping through my fur, I could feel them in my teeth and soon I was consumed by a dark and slightly blue static storm of electric energy which tried to be released but I kept control on it, keeping it, waiting.

Then I saw a shadow, for now without shape, just a moving cloud of darkness which was flying to my in great speed. As the shadow was closer and closer I started to see its details, six plumes of smoke like wings, a grey body covered in golden rings, red shining eyes perched in dark Giratina's head. I wasn't surprised that she knew that I had entered Distortion World, it was her domain, she knew about everything here. It was as if this was a part of her body, a great organism of matter and legendary, she was like a god here, almighty.

The only thing what was limiting her was the wall, the creation of outsiders, of someone greater than she. But were they really greater than Giratina if she found a way to destroy something that should be non-destroyable? And if she succeeds, would it make her greater than this mysterious creature who jailed her? Greater than the whole group of them?

I waited as she was closing in until the last moment, when she was silently flying just in front of me. I released my cumulated energy, but it wasn't a typical wall of annihilation, it shot like a beam of multiple spinning claps of thunders. Giratina couldn't stop in time and flew into the storm of lightning, my sight becoming blurry either because of the effort which I put into this one powerful attack or just because the light blinded me. I made a wider stance, so as to not fall to the side and after few seconds, which seemed like minutes of heavy breathing I looked up, I didn't like what I saw. Giratina was still floating looking at me from above as if waiting for me to faint.

"I see that fear which I put into your heart has disappeared," she spoke deeply not even opening her jaws, the voice was coming from every direction, as if was deflecting by the air and returning to me. "Pathetic. I can't be killed by some mutated jolteon, even Arceus can't kill me, I am a pillar of the world; but, there is something missing in you. You are not like when you left this world, you are...incomplete."

She probably meant the voices in my head that I had lost.

"I will! I will kill you or die jailing you here!" I screamed at her releasing another fast charged much weaker lightning but again it did no harm to her. I suddenly felt complete helplessness, a direct hit of this attack was killing everyone instantly but Giratina seemed to not even notice that I was attacking. I hadn't anything stronger.

"You can't kill me with my own power. I am part of this world, no one can kill me. But you don't need to worry, as I didn't plan to kill you, even if I should for your betrayal. You decided to stop me but I still have something what force you to change your decision." she laughed. "You are my key to my revenge and I will use it. If fear doesn't work any longer then this promise I have made will."

Before I could say how wrong she was thinking that I would accept anything from her, the ground under my paws disappeared, replaced by soft, tall, green grass.

I looked around, I was in a very familiar clearing, too familiar. At front of me was big old willow a little different than this what I bear in my mind but I had no doubts that were the same tree. I was at the bank of the pond of the clearest water what I ever saw. As I looked further I saw tall walls behind thick undergrowth and trees. I was in the valley, my 'home' in the normal world.

"But how do you know about it?" I asked surprised and scared.

 _ **Stupid, you are my creation, you are my another pair of eyes, their stunning effect is just a part of my changes. But now watch.**_

At the opposite bank of the pond, I saw two pokemon lying side by side, touching each other by the flank. First one was a familiar yellow fox-like pokemon with nine tails and red eyes, she was resting her head on the back of the second one, a yellow leafeon with green leaves and almost grey eyes. Naert was a little different than she was when I left her to come here, to Distortion World, but it wasn't any very noticeable change, just a little different arranging of fur or maybe it was just because of the light.

"I know where I am. Did you really think that you can trick me with some illusion?" I asked angrily but I didn't see any sign of Giratina, there was only her voice.

 _ **Shhh, look, that is the life which you sacrificed by coming here.**_

"That is not a true, I still have a chance to achieve that," I answered to Giratina's voice in my head.

 _ **Your chance?**_ I heard her short chuckle. _**Let us see what would happen if you would succeed in killing me.**_

The scene didn't change but the environment becomes darker, trees and grass growing longer, the sun changing with the moon, making days flow like seconds. And then it stopped.

Naert stayed unchanged but the leafeon wasn't the same, he became weak as if he shrunk, his leaves weren't green any longer, they were yellow and brown with many cracks and holes. His fur was looking poorly and eyes lose its brightness. The blowing winds brought strong odour of old fallen leaves. I heard a tired sob, a composition of sharp breathing in, released into a snivel.

"You can't, please stay with me longer," cried Naert's voice between breaths, as she was poking leafeon's body with her muzzle. But he didn't respond, still lying flat on the grass.

 _ **That is your victory, my creation.**_

"I...I am dying," I mumbled seeing the scene, I never thought that I could die, I always was regenerating myself staying unchanged in the same age. But how it could be possible that now it could be different?

 _ **It is me and my power which keeps you alive. I connected you to myself, you become stronger. Haa, you even had a chance to survive. But now without my support, you will be dead, time will start to affect you, you will age much faster than you think.**_

 _ **But that doesn't need to happen. You made your heart beat not only for you, I give you a chance to make it beat longer. The dead don't feel a pain, but those who you leave, you leave hurt. You don't know that pain. Yes, you were left by one who you love but you knew that she was alive and healthy. She even returned and felt sorry! Sorry to you, to so pathetic and weak being!**_

"How long?" I cut her, I wasn't able to look away from my own dead body. What did it mean to be dead? Why was I so afraid of that now? Everyone was dying, I saw it happen more than once. It was a natural thing, like breathing. But at the same time, I couldn't get along with this. Would I become like the souls which were in me? Someone's voice in a head? Or would I disappear without a sight, turn into nothing? But maybe it was exactly what I needed to go through. Something that I needed to face and something that is waiting for me behind the corner. The future that Giratina showed me wasn't true. She won't cry after me, she won't even know that I ever existed. Maybe she will be confused why she woke up in some clearing, feel some amnesia, but not a pain. The pain will be all mine, only mine. But I let Giratina continue to show her illusion with the hope that there may appear a chance to kill her.

 _ **Two years before you sentenced her to her own suffering. She has almost a thousand years of life still ahead. It would have been better if you had never met her. You wouldn't have a motivation to resist to me, you would become bored of the 'normal' world and would return to me. But no, she kept you busy for so long. What did you even see in her?**_

 _ **You met her as she was a weakling vulpix, I taught you to kill weaklings but you instead took care of her. But you weren't seeing her in this way as you see her now. At first, you just wanted to make something different than I thought you, to give her the freedom of choice. How ironic that the creature created to be manipulated wanted to give someone the freedom to choose.**_

 _ **And you did well, now she can choose: pain or even more pain. There is no victory for you. You can return to the normal world, let the barrier fall down, or continue your life with the awareness that no matter what would you do, you will leave her. After your death, there won't be a chance for you to meet each other again.**_

 _ **But it doesn't need to end like this, you can be alive as long as I am: an eternity. You will be always my insurance if I am trapped again here. Without me it won't be long until you will be dead and gone. But I didn't finish, look what is ahead.**_

As I looked up, I saw that time once again started going faster in my vision. The Leafeon's body, like sand, disintegrated, leaving ninetales alone on the clearing. The valley started to change, the pond, once clear, became dirty and smaller until it disappeared, leaving naked stones which were once at its bottom. The willow withered and fell to the ground, disintegrating into hundreds of pieces. Other plants quickly followed the willow's fate and soon I saw as my great home become a dry desert.

Years passed by as seconds and the ground was covered in concrete streets, where there were thick tall trees, and tall skyscrapers being built. But just as they achieved its full height it fell into ruins. Naert was still standing in the middle of it: she changed, her fur became a little darker, now closer to being gold than yellow, her eyes were tired, and she looked poorly, not standing with her head high but stoop-shouldered. Her look was so much more mature, she grew taller, had harder features and was...so strange to me.

 _ **This is just five hundreds years, half of her life. Want to see what is further?**_

I didn't want to. I didn't want to as I knew that suffering was what made Giratina happy, and I knew what would happen at the end of her show.

"What will happen to the world if you are free?" I asked as I finally looked away from older Naert and started walking through the valley. or at least what was once my valley. I didn't know her answer yet but I thought that I already decided, I didn't leave anything to which I could return. Naert forgot about me, I made her forget. For two, five or seven hundred years, even a thousand, she will live happily without me.

 _ **Why do you care about the world? Just go to your valley and nothing bad will happen, I have revenge on the legendaries of time and matter, nothing that you should care about.**_

That was right. I didn't need to save them, I didn't know them, I should choose those who I met, who I knew and who I loved.

No, how I could think like that. Giratina would burn the whole world and won't spare me or Naert.

"No, you don't know everything. I decline, there is no future for me there," I said and for the moment all sank into silence.

 _ **What?! It is what you want,**_ _**I can see it!**_ She telepathy-ed losing all illusion around.

"I made her forget me, so no one is waiting for me, no one will remember me. You have nothing to convince me," I said to the floating dragon. She stood in place for the moment, thinking.

Even if I couldn't see it, I had a feeling that Giratina was smiling, which made me shiver. Whatever idea she had, it wouldn't be good for me.

"She forgot you? Hmm, what a waste," She snorted poisonously after a moment of silence. "Because it seems that you didn't cover your tracks coming here and someone just followed it to join us."

I looked up, at firstly at Giratina before I looked around to see what she was talking about. Then I start to feel fearful, a sweltering and horrible helplessness. Because what I tried to avoid by my sacrifice came back, fate once again turning against me.

Just a few steps before a hole stood similar to... no, not similar, the original one. A ninetales from Giratina was an only poor substitute, a lifeless illusion made to deceive my senses but not able show real spirit. Spirit about which I never before was so scared as now.

"Naert, why...?" I asked and my voice trembled. Her eyes moved from Giratina to me but I didn't see in them any sympathy, it was only a mix of confusion and anxiety. Part of me still wanted to see this twinkle in her eyes, a slight smile on her face and her warmth close to my body.

"How do you know... my name?" she asked, visibly surprised, and maybe scared. "Who are you?" she added, now much more assertively, but there was also a tone of anger which let me know that I couldn't walk up to her. But that wasn't me who answered.

"That my dear ninetales is Taranis," Giratina replied, "a plague of the world, a concentration of the evil power and the one who messed with your head," Giratina spoke fastly and flew to the Naert side levitating above her. The way she spoke was in a tone which I never heard her using earlier, it was a voice of hurt and haunted creature who just saw it savour.

"Mess with my head?" Naert said confused looking at the legendary.

"Don't listen to her, she is the bad one here! You didn't even believe in Giratina's existence!" I screamed but as I saw how Giratina try to turn my Naert against me.

"I-I, yes, I really didn't believe in legendaries," Naert said unsurely.

"See?! Look! He just knows what you thought, he is manipulating with your mind, he is who led you here. Imagine how many moments of your past you lost, how many friends you won't remember, did you remember you mated?" Giratina kept trying to manipulate the firefox, but with the last word, she was looking at me. I felt that I want to cry. Cry because Naert didn't deny it didn't push it away or step back from Giratina.

"She is lying!" I screamed again but I felt absolutely hopeless, Giratina was making pressure on her mind and I couldn't defeat or stop her. And I started it, clearing her mind was supposed to save her and already was causing me pain but now, now the pain gained a new meaning and I couldn't do anything with it. She didn't remember, she wouldn't trust me, she wouldn't listen to me, she wasn't with me any longer.

"Am I lying?! You know what I am, I am a legendary, the pillar of the world, who will you trust? Me? Or this emancipation of evil before you?" Giratina said almost pushing Naert before her. I wanted to scream and shout, to not let her listen to these lies yet I couldn't say anything, exhale any sound. I coughed but this didn't help, just as if I would have a voice.

"I want my memory back," Naert said determined, hardly glaring at me.

"There is no way to bring your memory back, all I can give you is a creature who did it," Giratina spoke faking her sorrow so perfectly that even I could be fooled by her if I didn't know better.

The angry glare of the red Naert's eyes intensified she made a step to me. I could see in her eyes a deep red, the same colour which Giratina had all the time in hers.

"Don't do it, it is not like that, Naert stop, I love you, I can't fight with you," I begged but this only made her even more upset. She ignited a small fire storm between her tails, changing them to one giant torch.

"Stop calling me Naert! It is my hidden name! That one which I would only say to pokemon who I trust!" she growled and before I could say anything more, she spewed out a large torrent of bright red, almost orange, fire. I ducked under it but the heat of it slightly burned my skin on the back. Naert's attacks were hot and powerful, burning its way to me, causing a fire similar to the one in her eyes: a fire of fury and death.

I didn't even have a second of pause; just after the fire above me went off I needed in a blink of an eye, to jump backwards to avoid her tails covered in dancing flames. I didn't even land on my paws after my jump when a wave of psychic energy hit my belly, sending me crashing on my back. I quickly stood up and looked at the situation. Naert was now three meters from the hole in the wall from which she came. I thought about a plan but I found a question, for what I was going to fight? My future? I hadn't any. My safety? It wasn't important.

It should be absolutely different, she supposed to never feel this pain but here she was, fighting, manipulated, with awareness of her missing memory. This awareness which will cause her pain for the rest of her life. But I needed to hurt her once again but now not to save her only from more pain, but from Giratina and death.

Giratina was flying above both of us simply enjoying the scene. She didn't see anything more than the funny spectacle and for her, we were just actors in this spectacle. It was my job to end this.

"I am sorry," I apologised to Naert as I suddenly sped up straight at her, I tried not to achieve a speed which makes my fur spark with electricity, but still, some small sparks appeared. She gasped but didn't manage to move when I hit straight in her chest sending her flying through the hole in the wall from which she came from. Not wasting the electricity gained by running, with tears in my eyes I sent a lightning bolt not aimed at the fire-fox but a little above of the entrance. This made the rock collapse, falling to the ground and closing the pass.

It wasn't the way in which I wanted to see her last time. I was not sure if she was far enough to avoid the falling rock, with the anger and hate, kicked out by me. I sobbed and felt how tears finally left my eye and fell to the ground with a quiet plop.

"Eh, I really hoped she would do more to you," Giratina spoke calmly making all my spikes to stand up from the burning anger which filled me.

"You turned her against me!" I turned to Giratina. "I HATE YOU!"

In the same moment, Giratina suddenly appeared just above me and shot ahead like an arrow, wildly and primal. Before I could react she caught me in her jaws, squeezing me hard but not enough to crush me. All her illusion disappeared and Distortion World returned in sight.

She started to fly, carrying me through Distortion World, I had never gone that fast before, my eyes were filled with tears and I had problems to breathe because of the wall of wind against in my face.

It wasn't long before we arrived the edge of the giant field covered in thousands of identical violet stones, one next to each other, every in the same distance to each other creating long lines, but they were in different size. There was also some stones similar to these which Rea's and this random espeon were jailed. Tran or Teran? I couldn't remember what his name was now.

But beside the flareon and espeon were also jailed every different eeveelution, all of them seemed to be familiar, horribly familiar but I hadn't enough time to check my theory.

At first, I didn't notice how the prisons were sorted but as I looked around I noticed that humanoids were on left and quadrupeds were on the right, further down were pokemon able to fly and even further, to swim.

Giratina immediately stopped and threw me on the ground, in the quadruped section, then without saying a word turned and flew away.

I needed to run, the field was very large, so large that I couldn't see its end. I didn't want to stay here for a long time.

I was surrounded by once living 'decorations' from every direction. But as I wanted to make a step I found out that I couldn't lift my paw from the ground. As I looked down I saw that my paws weren't there, or at last weren't visible. I was sunk to my elbows into another violet stone which was consuming me going slowly up. I desperately tried to move but the stone stayed intact, mighty and unmerciful.

I looked around hopelessly trying to find anything able to help me somehow but there was nothing then even more violet stones. In the first row to my left, I saw something...unusual. In another stone, much bigger than the prison for the eeveelutions, was a tall but slim mostly light-blue creature, with a thick purple mane and a large crest on top of its head, it looked solid and heavy. But seeing a neck of this creature I started to doubt into a weight of the crest: it wasn't possible that this pokemon could lift his head with that weigh on top.

"Weird things Giratina is keeping here," I mumbled but then I realised that I would become another weird thing here.

 _ **I prefer to not be a 'thing'.**_

I immediately froze, even if I already couldn't move and run my vision across the sky looking for Giratina but she wasn't here. The voice sounded different then Giratina, also overwhelming and bossy, containing pride and just by the way how it sounded was saying 'I am better than you', however, this one wasn't as dark and cold as Giratina's voice. But the mental voice can make a sound or I was just imagining it?

 _ **What are you freak? Did you come to join me? What you even are? Some Giratina's litter or the world already ended and now only things like you are walking there?**_

"What the fuck are you?" I asked irritated. Now I was sure that wasn't Giratina but who else was here if not she?

 _ **I was once called Suicune if you need to know, you should bow to me but wait, you already can't.**_ It laughed and then I noticed that my whole feet already sank into the stone.

I looked around trying to find out what Suicune was but all I could see were stones with pokemon inside, nothing that could 'speak' to me.

 _ **So, you know what I am. Should I repeat my question about what you are, or answering is too much effort to you?**_

"I am..." I reminded myself that I was in my dark electric appearance. "Ehm, whatever. I still don't know what you are and it seems that you see my quite clearly!"

 _ **You were admiring me almost two minutes and you already forgot? I am here really long but I didn't know that it is possible to degenerate that much to forget things that fast.**_

Then I turned around my head and found that creature which whose existence I doubted had its eyes open, but didn't change its position in its prison, Suicune was looking at me as much as the violet wall of prison was allowing her.

"Everyone can 'speak' here?" I asked.

 _ **No, just me.**_

"And why only you?" I questioned irritated.

 _ **Legendaries can't silence other legendaries, or at least not completely.**_

"So, you are saying that you are a legendary? I doubt it...but it would explain your irritating arrogance," I said.

 _ **I think that you need to get used to it, we are about to spend an eternity here.**_

* * *

 _ **You don't need to continue, I know the rest.**_

I couldn't see anymore. All I knew was that I was sunk in violet stone, just like a bug in amber. I lost the feeling of time and the only thing what I still can hear was Suicune's voice in my head. I told her everything, I hadn't anything different to do anyway. I was lost here: dead but still alive.

 _And how you were caught by Giratina?_ I asked. Our talk is possible only thanks to the link created by Suicune. I just need to think about some words.

 _ **It was very long ago,**_ she began, _**when the world was a much more peaceful place. I was caught when I tried to defend this peace. Something bad happened to Giratina: she always was aggressive and liked to look at others suffering. But we tolerated this as it wasn't something that could have any far-reaching effect.**_

 _ **But then she became even more aggressive and evil, she started killing much more than was needed. At first, just a few smaller packs of different species disappeared. It wasn't something which couldn't start a war.**_

 _ **But when whole populations were being annihilated and Giratina didn't want to stop, then we decided to do something. It was six of us, three birds and three canines, me involved. The rest of legendaries didn't help us, they avoided the problem or thought that they wouldn't be affected by anything that was happening. As you can guess, we lost.**_

 _It had to be very long ago._

 _ **Yes, it was. But you said that there was some barrier between the world that stopped her. I didn't know about this, so it needed to be after I ended up here.**_

 _But Giratina will force her way out anyway. It is just a matter of time when Rea will get used to it; maybe it is already happening? How much time has passed while we are talking?_

 _ **Time goes here much faster, in the normal world it was like five, maybe six months. You said that also you still need to break the wall.**_

 _Because I know how to do form change, and it is not something which Giratina knows. It came to me naturally, so it is not very possible that Rea will have the same ability and also learn it naturally. Even Giratina took it as luck that I learned form change. That is why I am still alive. But I wish I would be dead._

 _ **Every world is going to its doom, Giratina is the doom of our world and all we can do is to postpone it. But actually, I can make you dead, I even should do so if it can postpone the end.**_

 _Can you kill me? But how? We are both jailed._

 _ **Giratina doesn't even know that I can talk to pokemon jailed here, I just need to touch your mind, much harder than I am doing speaking to you.**_

 _So, are you really legendary? What is wrong with you, why have so many legendaries decided to meet me? Don't you have anything better to do?_

 _ **Sorry, I actually didn't plan to meet you, it rather seems that you came to me, than I to you. But with all your powers I think that you could become one of us, maybe one of the weakest.**_

 _Me, a legendary? It is not a time for joking. Suicune. How were you even born? How is every legendary born? Or it was just because someone ordered you to become a legendary, like you are doing to me now?_

 _ **It was childish playing of creator of every life, at first it wanted to make every his creation different powerful and unique, legendary. He was a daydreamer, when he becomes bored of one of his creature he was making another and another. It is funny seeing how those alive now imagine their creator: as a mighty, powerful creature who knows everything, while in reality he is just naive and childishly pushing the world into different ways to have something to look at, like it's some kind of show.**_

 _But if he created all of this, shouldn't he be more intelligent than you claim?_

 _ **If he is more intelligent he hasn't shown it yet. It created a lot of things which didn't fit with each other and others needed to repair his mistakes. The world that you saw wasn't built by him, but by the creatures living there, I mean these which we are calling the lowest being, for you: every normal mortal pokemon or human.**_

 _ **Most of the legendaries don't know what 'life' is, so they couldn't build the world for living creatures. But how can they know, living an eternity you get used to it that everything around you is dying. So you don't care about it.**_

 _And how you think? Does life have any value for you?_

 _ **I don't know, maybe? I spend such a long time here being jailed that I start to regret that I can't just die.**_

 _Your eternal life doesn't have anything to do with dying here. Everyone in this stone cannot die, and will wait until Giratina decides that there won't be any profits from keeping you here._

 _ **How do you know about it?**_

 _I have lived here quite long, you may say that it was my home where I was growing up, so I learned how Giratina functions. About death, you said that you can kill me now, what about my regeneration?_

 _ **Yes, I can kill you. But it will be more like turning you off. You will be still 'alive', but like a plant. Dead inside, no mind, no self-awareness. Giratina probably will feel it, you have so much of her energy inside that I would be surprised if she would miss something like that. But don't worry about your life-saving form change ability, it won't be enough to help you now.**_

 _And what then? When I will be dead?_

 _ **I don't know, maybe Giratina will stop cursing Rea and try to think about a different plan. Maybe even return her to normal so no one would learn that she is trying anything.**_

 _Uh, I was rather asking what will happen to me when I die._

 _ **You will be dead. Honestly, I don't know, I have never died, you will need to find out by yourself, but whatever it may be like, being as you are you shouldn't be afraid of the dark, but of light. Before you die, tell me your name, you used many of them. Under which of them you want to die?**_

 _I am not sure, every of them was fake and I don't want to end as Taranis, Giratina's litter. I was faking so many personalities, I think that I am no one. Who even cares about a name? I can have any, all I needed was to think about some._

 _ **Even nobody can also have a name.**_

 _Why would it be different now? Just another name like any other one, why I can't die namelessly?_

 _ **You told me the story of your life, you shared your moments, I want to know who is at the end of it.**_

I didn't respond to her immediately, she was irritating me, making this moment unnecessarily longer. But then I had an idea, a name for someone who never existed, no one, mistake, and it even didn't sound that bad.

 _Nullus, let it be Nullus._

 _ **You are so stubborn. But okay.**_ I heard her sigh, she probably also knew what this name means. _**Farewell now. We will meet again when the world will end and another one will rise.**_

 _But what should I be doing now?_

 _ **I will count to three, try to relax, maybe think about something nice.**_

 _Okay._

 _ **One.**_

Thinking about something nice, how could I think about something nice when it is just my last two seconds? Then I find out that I don't have anything to think about, I haven't anything left, anything happy, all that I can do is to die. Maybe this will be a nice thing? Maybe this will truly free me, no more worries, no more pain, no more efforts, just nothing, endless void, my future.

 _ **Two**_

* * *

 **The End**

* * *

Thanks to Micah Debrink for beta-reading and making it readable.

Hello, glad You read it to the end. I guess that if you are here then you need to like this story, more or less. I would like to know what You think about it (positive and negative thoughts) so I encourage You to share your opinion, in review or PM.


End file.
